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  • In The Wake the Lizzo Debacle, One Is Reminded That Madonna’s Own Behavior Toward Her Dancers Might Not Have Sat So Well With People Today

    In The Wake the Lizzo Debacle, One Is Reminded That Madonna’s Own Behavior Toward Her Dancers Might Not Have Sat So Well With People Today

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    As Lizzo has gone expectedly silent amid a climate that doesn’t take so kindly to emotional abuse anymore, one can’t help but think back to a time when it was easier to “get away with” being both a bit bawdy and “bullying” with their dancers. For example, no one was about to cry “sexual harassment lawsuit” or “failure to prevent and/or remedy hostile work environment” in 1990, the year Madonna spent touring the world with her coterie of hand-picked gay male dancers. Many of whom contributed to making the subsequent Truth or Dare documentary as entertaining and eye-opening as it was. Indeed, they tended to feel the same way. Which is why select members of the troupe did decide to sue her after the film’s release. Those members being Kevin Stea, Gabriel Trupin and Oliver Crumes. 

    Funnily enough, it was also three dancers (Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez) from Lizzo’s The Special Tour who decided not to take any further abuse from the erstwhile Svengali formerly pulling the strings. In Stea, Trupin and Crumes’ scenario, the affront came when they realized the extent to which they and their personal lives were paraded in Truth or Dare. With the lawsuit also filed in California, the dancers cited the emotional detriment of Madonna featuring scenes in which the dancers “discuss[ed] intimate facts about their personal life not previously known to the public.” Chief among them, the fact that Kevin and Gabriel were gay, and did not necessarily want that information to be so public at a time of peak homophobia in the U.S. Of course, Madonna would likely insist that she did them and the world a favor by committing something akin to “immersion therapy.” Getting viewers accustomed to seeing more gay men onscreen, as well as forcing Kevin and Gabriel to be “open” about who they were, etc. Where was the “harm” in that (apart from to the eyes of Republicans “hate watching” the documentary)? 

    What’s more, this height of Madonna’s career (so oversaturated that she eventually quipped that she only ever felt overexposed at the gynecologist’s) did not exist at a time when “consent” was such “a thing.” Not sexually or otherwise. And, to that end, it does bear noting that Truth or Dare was produced by Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films, therefore it was also named in the suit against Madonna and her company, Boy Toy Inc., as well as Propaganda Films (co-founded by “Madonna music video director,” David Fincher). 

    The lawsuit itself arose at the beginning of 1992, which was evidently already establishing itself as a tumultuous year for Madonna. And yet, the dancers weren’t about to, well, dance around the issue at hand. While Stea and Crumes were more concerned about rightful compensation for their images being used, Trupin was most harmed by the personal life damage it did, stating that he had to undergo therapy afterward because it “exposed him to contempt and ridicule.” Just as Lizzo’s own dancers are at this moment in time by those who refuse to believe their “god” could do any wrong. And they, too, are being asked, “How could you?” Not just by Lizzo fans, but Lizzo herself, who claims to have been “blindsided” by the dancers’ complaints. Even though said dancers stated that multiple attempts were made to get Lizzo’s attention re: the severity of the matter, and the lawsuit was the last-ditch effort to do so. In which case, mission accomplished. 

    With Madonna, the relationship with her dancers was a bit different. Not just because they were gay men who themselves thrived on sexual energy coursing through their veins the way Madonna did (and still does), but because Madonna “cultivating” them for her tour was considered more groundbreaking in that period due to their sexual orientation. While some (including Lizzo herself) would point out that Lizzo hiring “fat” dancers is also groundbreaking, it doesn’t hold the same political gravity as what Madonna was doing in 1990, and at an apex of the AIDS epidemic no less. And so, with this in mind, the dancers were likely “just grateful” to be considered for such a major world tour at all. In fact, their presence in Truth or Dare was one of the first mainstream instances of homosexuality displayed onscreen, prompting many men to come out afterward. 

    Nonetheless, that wasn’t “enough” to keep Madonna’s trio of dancers from speaking up about their violation of privacy. With Trupin’s experience being that “director Alek Keshishian told him he could delete any footage he believed was an invasion of privacy, and says that when he asked that the scene in which he kisses the other dancer [“Slam”] be removed from the completed film, Madonna shouted, ‘Get over it, I don’t care!’” Something, of course, that Lizzo would never be free to say today. Though we all know she wants to. Because the thing about major celebrities hiring “backup” is that they become mere brushstrokes in the painting of the “star” herself. Who wants the painting to look a certain way without considering the, shall we say, painstaking strokes it takes to make it look that way. 

    We may never know if the dancers of Truth or Dare were genuinely “okay” with Madonna’s sexually charged presence both onstage and off (see: the Evian bottle scene) during the Blond Ambition Tour, or merely responding to it “positively” because they were a product of the time they lived in. When you really were expected, especially as a dancer, to just be grateful to have work with such a big star, and one who paid so well. Plus, as Madonna was sure to point out, most of the dancers had never been given the chance to “see the world” as the Blond Ambition Tour was about to enable them to. Something that Madonna felt proud of in terms of her ability to “give that” to them, which, in turn, allowed for effortless emotional manipulation. Manifest in the more than somewhat problematic voiceover of Madonna saying, “The innocence of the dancers move me. They’re not jaded in the least. They haven’t been anywhere. This was the opportunity of their lives. And I know that they’ve suffered a great deal in their lives, whether with their families or just being poor or whatever. And I wanted to give them the thrill of their lives. I wanted to impress them. I wanted to love them.”

    Taking in such scenes and presentations as this prompted bell hooks to write, “Given the rampant homophobia in this society and the concomitant heterosexist voyeuristic obsession with gay lifestyles, to what extent does Madonna progressively seek to challenge this if she insists on primarily representing gays as in some way emotionally handicapped or defective? Or when Madonna responds to the critique that she exploits gay men by cavalierly stating: ‘What does exploitation mean?… In a revolution, some people have to get hurt. To get people to change, you have to turn the table over. Some dishes get broken.’”

    It was obvious that, more than viewing her dancers as “dishes” to be (further) broken, she saw them as her little dolls. To play with and “position” as she wanted. All while assuming that the dancers would be ecstatic merely for the privilege of being around her. And for a time, they were. To boot, every dancer has ostensibly “made peace” with what happened, with Madonna even joined onstage by Jose Xtravaganza for her Finally Enough Love Pride event in June of 2022. The dancers also “expressed themselves” regarding the Blond Ambition Tour via their own 2016 documentary, Strike A Pose. So who knows? Maybe Lizzo’s dancers will one day make their “catharsis doc” as well, and could even end up saying they harbor no ill will toward the self-proclaimed “Big Girl.” Who, in a similar fashion to Madonna, expected nothing but gratitude.

    In that spirit, Lizzo was reported as saying something to the effect of, “You know dancers get fired for gaining weight; you should basically be grateful to be here.” Where once (including in 1990) this “logic” might have gone largely unquestioned, it’s becoming less and less acceptable to put up with abuse just because someone is a “major pop culture fixture.” In other words, celebrity/pop icon privilege is slowly but surely starting to unravel. And one tends to believe that the recent barrage of onstage attacks has something to do with that. Not just because fans feel entitled to a “piece” of the celeb or want to create a viral moment with them, but because they no longer seem to believe a celebrity is an “untouchable creature.” Wanting to prove that point by more literally knocking them off their pedestal. 

    The modern genesis of this may very well have started with what Madonna’s dancers did. In J. Randy Taraborrelli’s Madonna: An Intimate Biography, the revelation about the trio suing her is described as follows: “Madonna was angry about the suit. ‘Those ingrates,’ she said to one colleague. ‘To think that I made them who they are, then they treat me like this.’” A line that reeks of Norma Desmond-level delivery. Taraborrelli added, “Shortly after the suit was filed, Madonna happened upon Oliver Crumes at a party. ‘If you want money,’ she told him, her tone arctic, ‘why don’t you sell that Cartier watch I bought for you?’” Everything about this exchange (whether “lore” or not) exhibits what’s wrong with how celebrities view the people in their employ. 

    Regardless, some can still only see it from the celebrity’s side, with Keshishian defending Madonna back then by saying, “…it was extortion, in my mind. They’d signed the releases and it wasn’t as if we were filming it in secret. The cameras were there all the time. They did the interviews. What did they think was being filmed—a home movie!? I didn’t respect that. I felt bad for Madonna because she really did love those kids and they turned around and did that. That’s why celebrities grow more and more weary of getting close to anybody.”

    By the same token, that’s why people in the arts grow weary of working with celebrities: the expectation that they can be treated “lesser than” just because they’re working for some post-modern equivalent of a deity. Even so, there’s no denying that the current trio of dancers’ lawsuit against Lizzo is a harbinger of change. A warning to other singer-industrial complexes that what might have eked by largely unpublicized (with Madonna eventually settling out of court), therefore unchecked, is not going to anymore.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Beanie Bubble Reminds That The Ultimate Childhood Toy for Millennials Was Also the Ultimate Representation of What It Is to Be Millennial

    The Beanie Bubble Reminds That The Ultimate Childhood Toy for Millennials Was Also the Ultimate Representation of What It Is to Be Millennial

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    Perhaps what strikes one the most about The Beanie Bubble isn’t pulling back the curtain behind the “Wizard of Beanie Babies,” Ty Warner, and finding out he was a huge asshole, but rather, the realization of just how millennial the plush toys really were. This doesn’t pertain to the actual era during which they came out, so much as the “toys” being a reflection of what it already meant to be millennial, even (/especially) at tender preteen ages. The fact that even something as theoretically pure as “toys” suddenly had to be slapped with the purpose of “getting a return on one’s investment” couldn’t be more millennial by nature. Having the thing for the sake of having it simply wasn’t an option. It had to “give something back.” Just as millennial children were expected to. And yes, as Malcolm Harris notes in Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials, this was the first generation of children treated this way. As human capital.

    Look to none other than their baby boomer parents for a large part of that reason. The parents who wanted to ensure that their children had nothing but the best and never endured any amount of previously unavoidable pain whatsoever (hence, helicopter parenting). Their childhoods were going to be different. Safer. No playing outside for hours at a time until dinner. No, no. Now, that time had to be accounted for. Monitored. Monetizable (at least somewhere down the line).

    And there’s always more time for self-improvement over “useless” play. This factoring into why Beanie Babies certainly shouldn’t be viewed as actual toys to play with. Gasp! That was a scandalous thought after realizing they were actually laden with value. At times, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of value. So it is that the book The Beanie Bubble is based on, The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute (written by none other than a millennial), reminds that it “had turned into a craze that was the twentieth-century American version of the tulip bubble in 1630s Holland.” It, too, was described as a “mania.” Tulip mania.

    To that end, the precursor to The Beanie Bubble, a 2021 documentary called Beanie Mania, highlights the ways in which boomer parents took something theoretically innocent and fun, and then turned it into something that more closely resembled a chore, an obligation. A means to secure one’s future. In said documentary, a former Beanie-loving child named Michelle makes that apparent when she says, “…it became a multiple trip, do what we can, keep going until you were tired, until there were no other stores in the area that might have what we’re looking for. And then my mom took that to an extreme and it quickly became her thing over mine.”

    The obsession, on the parents’ part, with collecting as many Beanies as possible ultimately had more to do with “winning” at toy-owning/ensuring their child had the best of everything, than it did with “having fun.” For nothing about being a millennial child was ever about just having fun. All of it had to be in service for some “greater purpose.” Some higher aim in service of the competition called life. Something, in the end, that would create a “market bubble” among the buying and selling of millennials themselves. For if every millennial was trained in the same proverbial school of “Be the Best,” it creates a greater likelihood for children (and the adults they become) to be rejected by the various institutions that know “everyone” is both the crème de la crème and willing to work at maximum capacity for minimal payment. That’s what they learned in school, after all. Where “the pedagogical mask,” as Harris refers to it, is meant to conceal that what the children are actually doing is training for a life of unpaid labor (with such labor eventually billed as “just part of the job”), the great Beanie Baby race was a study in how to turn a quick profit. All by asking of a child the one thing you never should: don’t play with your toys.

    What could be a more “reasonable” ask of a generation where competition over things that were formerly innocent had never been at a higher level? As Harris remarks over the retooled school structure of the 90s, “[It’s] built around hypercompetition, from first period, to extracurricular activities, to homework, to the video games kids play when they have a minute of downtime. It’s not a coincidence—none of it. The growth of growth requires lots of different kinds of hard work, and millennials are built for it.” Not just because they’ve been conditioned to expect putting in hours of work with little given back in return, but because they’re the first generation that was taught to always be “plugged in.” To the matrix, that is. Always available, therefore always ready for any opportunity that might arise. Like a higher bidding price on eBay. The famed auction site that aligned with the rise of the secondary market for Beanie Babies. A secondary market that served as a collector’s wet dream. And yes, the entire driving force behind the rise and popularity of Beanie Babies were the collectors. Originally just a group of “cul-de-sac moms” from Naperville, Illinois. Meaning that, perhaps for the only time in history, the Midwest was ahead of the trend curve before everyone else. 

    Dave Sobolewski, the middle child of one of the “original Beanie Ladies,” Mary Beth, himself comes across as a quintessential millennial, simply shrugging off the absurdity with his assessment of market bubbles while also finding the time to flex, “My background, my education, my profession, it’s all finance. Beanie Babies is a case study in just how a few people pushing an idea and enthusiasm…crazy things can happen.” Spoken like someone who has never reckoned with the traumatic experience of being a millennial. Manipulated for profit in much the same manner as Beanie Babies until millennials’ own bubble burst. Instead, Dave writes off the unhinged fanaticism as: “Without the few women that started the entire mania, Beanie Babies never would have been.” It bears mentioning, to be sure, that the women who started it were all white and middle-class, and many of them held formerly high-powered jobs before giving it up to be a “full-time mom” (as though you can’t be that regardless of having a paid job) in the cul-de-sac. Undoubtedly, it sounds a lot like the plot to The Stepford Wives. And maybe there was something “automaton-esque” about their obsession. More, more, more. Feed, feed, feed.

    All of this, in the end, being the philosophy that trickled down to their millennial children, who would not have the benefit of experiencing adulthood in an epoch that allowed for such ease of moneymaking as the boomers did. Ty Warner (played by Zach Galifianakis) himself being such an example of someone who continuously “fell into” money. In large part due to the women he surrounded himself with. Women who are finally given some credit in The Beanie Bubble, structured in an “all over the place” way (that many critics included in part of their panning) to show the different time periods in which Warner was most reliant on them. Patricia Roche was the first on Warner’s list of Women to Fuck Over. Helping him to establish the business, there’s no denying she was instrumental in the initial years of Ty Inc.’s success before Beanie Babies. In the movie, she becomes “Robbie Jones” (played by Elizabeth Banks), while Faith McGowan, his second serious girlfriend, becomes Sheila (Sarah Snook). But the woman he arguably took the most advantage of wasn’t even someone he was dating.

    Instead, it was college student Lina Trivedi, who worked there for twelve dollars an hour from 1992 to 1998 despite the fact that she was the direct cause of the many millions (then billions) of dollars the company would go on to make. In no small part because of her suggestion to implement the use of this thing called “The Internet.” In fact, Ty Inc. was surprisingly ahead of the game on the ways in which the internet could be used. From checking out product information to serving as a place for collectors to connect, Trivedi was the brainchild behind all of that. 

    And the boomers were ready to absorb the technology. This being what amplified and blew up Beanie Mania into pure frenzy. As Joni Hirsch-Blackman in Beanie Mania puts it, “It was a really nice thing for a while…till the adults ruined it.” At least some adults can admit that much. Though they can’t seem to admit that everything about Beanie Baby fever was fueled from a middle-class perspective, with no regard for what else was actually going on in the world (or the havoc they would ultimately wreak upon people’s lives by creating this speculative market). To that point, Joni also foolishly declares, “I think of the 90s as sort of frivolous.” From that skewed view (one that ignores things like the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, the first World Trade Center bombing attempt, the Unabomber, the rise of school shootings, etc.), it left room for the frivolousness of collecting (again, if you were white and middle-class).

    As the early days of trolling for Beanie Babies gave way to something far darker, Joni could admit that the taint was starting to settle in fast on what was once meant to be a child’s toy. However, as she remarks, “This was becoming something different. We don’t play with these things because they’re gonna be worth money. If the tag was creased, you’d ruin the value of your Beanie.” To reiterate, this is decidedly “millennial thinking.” Or rather, the thinking that millennials were inculcated with. Always search for the next hustle, the next scam, the next “get rich quick” scheme. All without seeming to realize that “legitimate” jobs require just as much time and effort as the so-called easy way out. Then, of course, there was all the waste that arose from the obsession with collecting. Not least of which was the McDonald’s collaboration that resulted in “Teenie Beanies,” prompting consumers to just throw away the food after buying excessive amounts of Happy Meals to complete their set. At the height of the fervor in 1998, various fights and thefts would break out at McDonald’s locations across the U.S., necessitating police involvement. The fixation on these bean-filled sacks shaped as animals being of high value meant that, suddenly, the market seemed to be filled solely with sellers. Sellers who were starting to get fed up with the secondary market when inventory wasn’t being unloaded so quickly, or for as much as it had in the past when the bubble started to burst around 1999. 

    Sensing the imminent doom, Warner pulled a stunt announcing Beanie Babies would be discontinued after December 31, 1999 (appropriate, considering their demise would be after the 90s ended anyway). Then, after a buying spike, he polled the collectors (by charging them to vote on the website) if they wanted Beanies to stay—after he had already ratcheted up the demand again in the wake of that “to be discontinued” announcement. This doesn’t make it into The Beanie Bubble, though what comes across overall is that there is no “genius” behind the curtain. In Beanie Mania, Ty even is referred to as the Wizard of Oz. An emperor with no clothes, as it were. Sure, he could be billed as the “eccentric heart” of the designs, but, in the end, he would have been nothing without the women behind him. This was a key element that writer Kristin Gore (that’s right, the daughter of 90s vice president, Al), wanted to convey. Co-directed with her husband, Damian Kulash, The Beanie Bubble does just that. And, although known to many as the lead singer for OK Go, Kulash seems uniquely qualified to co-direct the movie as he contributed a story to a book called Things I’ve Learnt from Women Who’ve Dumped Me. Would that Ty Warner had learned anything from the women who dumped him, least of all humility. And an understanding that his success was a direct result of the rigged system that continues to favor white men. 

    Per Gore on writing the script, “We’ve talked a lot about how there’s this myth of a lone male genius coming up with things. You see it over and over again, benefiting from a system that’s rigged for him and against everyone else. And we wanted to peel back those layers and look at that myth and really show what everyone knows, which is that there’s always so much more to that story. There are always so many more people involved.” In the case of the millennial mentality that insists, “Always be driven, always be competing…with the potential for no payout,” that, too, had many people involved. From the government to parents and, yes, to corporations like Ty Inc.

    What The Beanie Bubble also wants to remind people of is how ugly capitalism makes us. Which is why the film opens with that illustrious truck crash scene (which is, needless to say, hyper-stylized), wherein boxes of Beanies go flying and everyone on the highway starts picking at the remains like vultures. In Beanie Mania, Mary Beth blithely sums a scene like this up with, “The collector’s mentality is that you can never have enough.” But the sentence Mary Beth was really looking for was: “The American consumer’s mentality is that you can never have enough.” And you have to be willing to claw and compete at any (literal) cost to get it. That’s what millennials learned. Yet they’re still somehow shocked that none of their unpaid labor (starting at the school level) has yielded a substantial return.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “bad idea right?”: Olivia Rodrigo Asks The Same Question As Forebears Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry (Not To Mention Drunk Women Everywhere)

    “bad idea right?”: Olivia Rodrigo Asks The Same Question As Forebears Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry (Not To Mention Drunk Women Everywhere)

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    Giving listeners a taste of something that diverges from the (initially) ballad-y sound of Guts’ lead single, “vampire,” Olivia Rodrigo opts for a more “brutal”-esque tone on her second offering from the record, “bad idea right?” A release pattern that matches what she did with Sour by presenting “deja vu” after the slow, bemoaning jam that is “drivers license.” “good 4 u” and “brutal” would then further establish her knack for “angst you can dance to.”

    The same goes for “bad idea right?,” which is similar to “brutal” in that both songs are “upbeat” while being filled with self-doubt and self-contempt. In this way, Rodrigo confirms more than ever that she’s a Pisces with her back-and-forth waffling about hooking up with an ex during a drunken night of folly. And yes, as a Pisces, of course she’s going to opt for the more self-destructive route. As for the title, if it sounds rather familiar, perhaps you’ll recognize (most of) it from another water sign’s oeuvre. Specifically, Ariana Grande’s thank u, next record, which places “bad idea” at track six. Bearing sentiments that are akin to Rodrigo’s on “bad idea right?,” Grande has her own “fuck it” attitude when she sings, “I got a bad idea/Yeah, I’ma call you over here to numb the pain” and “Yeah, I know we shouldn’t, baby, but we will (you know we will)/Need somebody, gimme something I can feel/But, boy, don’t trip/You know this isn’t real/You should know I’m temporary.” 

    Rodrigo also wants to get that intention across with the many caveats she spreads throughout her own sonically delivered bad idea. So it is that she lies to herself, “Yes, I know that he’s my ex/But can’t two people reconnect?/I only see him as a friend/The biggest lie I ever said.” Elsewhere adding an “Oops!…I Did It Again” sort of flourish with, “I just tripped and fell into his bed.” The notion of lying/being a liar in this particular song for once applies to Rodrigo instead of the erstwhile object of her affection. Case in point, her accusation in “traitor,” which opens with, “Brown guilty eyes and little white lies.” Or the one in “vampire” that goes, “How do you lie without flinching?/(How do you lie, how do you lie, how do you lie?).” The point being that Rodrigo is fine with lies in “bad idea right?” so long as they only involve the ones she tells herself in order to engage in some “guilty pleasure” sex with an ex. 

    As for the video (once again directed by Petra Collins) to get that message across, it commences with the roll of thunder outside a house where a party is already in full swing (because despite moving to New York, Rodrigo can’t shake the California tradition of house parties). And as Rodrigo primps in the bathroom mirror with her friends (the ones [played by Madison Hu, Tate McRae and Iris Apatow] she’ll later tell she “was asleep/But I never said where or in whose sheets”), she gets a call from someone in her phone labeled as, “LOSER NOT WORTH MENTIONING.” Which is far more “bespoke” than “DO NOT ANSWER.” While the party rages on outside the bathroom, Rodrigo, outfitted in a baby blue angora sweater, a silver sequined mini skirt and a heart choker, does her best imitation of Liv Tyler as Corey Mason in Empire Records (perhaps naturally assuming that members of her birth cohort won’t be able to make that connection, therefore claiming it as her own). 

    But that’s not the only pop culture icon Rodrigo is “giving” as she continues down the path of emulation for “bad idea right?” There’s also many shades of Katy Perry’s 2019 single, “Never Really Over,” during which she also finds plenty of ways to justify getting back together with an ex (albeit in a far more relationship-y way than what Rodrigo wants to do on “bad idea right?”). This includes Perry chirpily singing, “Oh, we were such a mess, but wasn’t it the best?/Thought it was done, but I guess it’s never really over.” Before this part of the chorus, she already mirrors Rodrigo’s self-flagellating attitude in the first and second verses: “I’m losing my self control/Yeah, you’re starting to trickle back in/But I don’t wanna fall down the rabbit hole/Cross my heart, I won’t do it again/I tell myself, tell myself, tell myself, ‘Draw the line’/And I do, I do/But once in a while I trip up, and I cross the line/And I think of you.” 

    Rodrigo does more than just “think” in “bad idea right?”—she takes action. Ergo, letting herself be pulled, like a Pisces on a reel, right back up to her ex’s apartment. However, this doesn’t occur until after much more internal deliberation and much more alcohol consumption (“I’m out right now and I’m all fucked up”). Then, after a bit of crowd surfing, she gathers the courage to stow away in the back of a truck while it’s still pouring down rain. As if that weren’t already enough of a testament to her commitment to getting some hard (or at least semi-soft) dick, when the driver ends up with car trouble, she then gets on a bus that’s seemingly filled with several other people who also think it’s a bad idea (right?) to go see their own exes. Or maybe they just think it’s a bad idea for Rodrigo to go see hers. 

    Either way, the fact that “bad idea right?” has been released right after the accusatory/never-speaking-to-you-again “vampire” just goes to show how indecisive a girl can be when a fuckboy is involved (or girl, since many fans have speculated that “vampire” is actually about Taylor Swift—which would be a very “Bad Blood” maneuver). This, too, being evident in Taylor Swift’s 2012 hit, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Another track that was inspired by the main “muse” of Red: Jake Gyllenhaal. And although Swift is adamant that she is “never ever ever getting back together” with said ex, it took her a long time to get to that point. Likely succumbing to the same temptations that Rodrigo speaks to in “bad idea right?” Something Swift alludes to in the first verse with the lines, “I remember when we broke up the first time/Saying, ‘This is it, I’ve had enough,’ ‘cause like/We hadn’t seen each other in a month/When you said you needed space (What?)/Then you come around again and say, ‘Baby, I miss you and I swear I’m gonna change, trust me’/Remember how that lasted for a day?/I say, ‘I hate you,’ we break up, you call me, ‘I love you.’” In Rodrigo’s case, it’s less “I love you” and more “I wanna fuck you.” Call it the increasing jadedness of each succeeding generation (but on the plus side, at least someone from Gen Z is expressing a desire to fuck at all). 

    Finally arriving at his apartment (on the second floor, a detail she notes very strategically) for her dick appointment, Rodrigo peels off her baby blue sweater (miraculously free of any signs of the slushy that got spilled all over her while she was on the bus) to show off a white tank top that will get optimally wet in the rain just in time for when he answers the door. Except that he’s too busy being a literal firework (another nod to Katy Perry?) in the bedroom (as “good 4 u” told us, Rodrigo has a thing for fiery bedrooms). Despite his ostensible inability to answer the door, Rodrigo makes it inside regardless and lies down next to “him.” Or rather, “it.” Because “he’s” actually  nothing more than some arcane form of light energy radiating those damn fireworks (again, this is a very Pisces way to portray things).

    As he goes up in smoke next to her, Rodrigo notices an errant spider crawling near her on the pillow. And yes, the symbolism of a spider—a creature that lures its prey into the web—is not lost on the viewer. Sketched out and appalled, this seems to serve as the sobering wake-up call she needs to reassess her bad idea in favor of a good one. Or so we’d like to believe. Just as we’d like to believe the same of ourselves. That we’re not some weak, frivolous little bia giving in to temptation as readily as Eve. Who didn’t even have the excuse of being drunk for her whimsical decision.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • When Everyone Wants to Believe A Celebrity Is Andy Kaufman’ing It

    When Everyone Wants to Believe A Celebrity Is Andy Kaufman’ing It

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    Ye, Taylor Swift (because Matty Healy), Lizzo, Doja Cat. When it comes to “wanting to believe” a celebrity is merely “putting you on,” the past year has provided no short supply of examples. Nor have the defensive reactions from fans insisting that everyone else deriding their “god” doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or that said “god” is simply “doing an act.” No one better embodies that latter category than Doja Cat. For, as her fans (or what’s left of them) have loved to suggest as a means to cushion the blow of her recent behavior, this entire “thing” she’s doing right now is just part of her “Scarlet persona”—or something. “Scarlet” being the name of the “character” she seems to be portraying. Or rather, an “alter ego,” if you prefer. Either way, fans are latching onto the idea that “she is now playing the role of Scarlet. They are two different characters. In an interview she said she apologized for what would happen later…she also said that she loved us before she got into the role of Scarlet. She doesn’t hate us, but Scarlet does since she’s evil. Doja doesn’t despise us, hate messages are from Scarlet!!!”

    It’s a “grasping at straws” type of reasoning, but one that makes sense considering the post-reality era we’ve been living in since Andy Kaufman’s brand arrived onto the scene. Particularly a 1982 hoax involving pro wrestler Jerry Lawler. Specifically, the time that they battled it out on an episode of The David Letterman Show. With Kaufman already in a neck brace after Lawler supposedly performed the piledriver maneuver on him, Lawler slapped Kaufman during the interview, leading them into another altercation. One that was, as revealed over a decade later, entirely staged. This was the type of “comedy” (or rather, performance art) that not only made Kaufman stand out, but also made him a legend. Mainly for being so committed to his “act” that the truth about it would take years to be unearthed. This also being why many people still speculate that he’ll emerge one day and say his death, too, was a hoax. This “approach” to celebrity would start to catch on not just with other famous people in the twentieth century (see also: Jim Carrey [who, fittingly, portrays Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon] at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards), but even non-famous people as well.

    In other words, those members of the hoi polloi who got the message that “the hoax” was what got people’s attention. And with “reality TV”/daytime talk shows as an increasingly viable medium with which the average joe could secure his fifteen minutes of fame, the opportunities for creating false fanfare were ample. Case in point, a 1998 episode of The Jerry Springer Show (rebranded as part of “Springer Break” for MTV’s illustrious week of spring break programming), during which two roommates named Dave and Matt went on the show with Dave’s girlfriend, Caitlin. When Matt “confesses” he’s been fooling around with Caitlin, Dave goes completely apeshit on him to a level that clearly gets Springer both salivating and scared when the camera flashes to his reaction. In the end, it turned out the trio had bamboozled the talk show host, admitting the drama was completely manufactured. That yes, Dave and Caitlin were boyfriend and girlfriend, but that the affair with Matt was made up for the sake of quality 90s daytime TV. And so, taking into account how “the art of the hoax” and what it could do for germinal forms of virality had already trickled down into the culture of “normals” (a.k.a. non-famous people), its value became apparent to many. Especially as the twenty-first century progressed. 

    That same “hoax-like” quality was also manifest in the comedic stylings of Sacha Baron Cohen, who brought his Borat character from Da Ali G Show to life in an even bigger way in 2006’s Borat (a.k.a. Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan). Interacting with “dyed in the wool” Americans who genuinely believe he’s some “ghastly” foreigner with no knowledge of American life or customs, the gimmick Cohen had in mind—to expose prejudice and racism entrenched in the very fabric of American culture—worked like a charm. Between a Southern frat boy warning Borat to “not let a woman ever ever make you who you are” to a Republican at a Virginia rodeo telling Borat he should shave his mustache to look more like an I-talian instead of a Muslim to a crowd of people at that same rodeo laughing at Borat’s thick accent before he delves into an offensive version the national anthem (“I now will sing our Kazakh national anthem to the tune of your national anthem”), the levels of misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia present in the U.S. are exposed at every turn. And all through the carefully-constructed ruse of a character like Borat. 

    Less careful constructions aren’t always met with being hailed as “brilliant.” For example, in 2008, Joaquin Phoenix ostensibly had a “breakdown” (which was in rather poor taste considering Britney’s real one the same year) after announcing his plans to retire from acting so he could pursue a rap career. The result was a 2010 “documentary” directed by Casey Affleck. Quickly revealed to be a mockumentary, I’m Still Here (not to be confused with Todd Haynes’ impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, I’m Not There, released three years before) was met with lukewarm reviews, with many critics seeming to feel that it failed as “good performance art.” Plus, it also happened to furnish the film set that would later put Casey Affleck in the spotlight for his sexually harassing tendencies, as well as promoting a work environment that encouraged sexual harassment (à la Lizzo). So really, what “artistic value” did it have apart from being an experimental vanity project?

    The same can be said of whatever Doja Cat is “doing” right now. If, in fact, it’s contrived at all, and not just a desperate bid on fans’ part to validate her behavior (which also says something about the dangers of post-reality existence). This includes going off on their patheticness for saying they “love” her and trying to call themselves shit like “Kittenz” in honor of the way other fan bases have names (e.g., Ariana Grande’s Arianators, Taylor Swift’s Swifties, Charli XCX’s Angels, Kesha’s Animals, Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters, Nicki Minaj’s The Barbz, Beyoncé’s Beyhive, etc.). Doja made it apparent that not only does she think the people focusing their energy on this are total losers, but also that she doesn’t feel she “needs” them at all. At least not anymore. Not now that she has enough money to pursue whatever she wants creatively. Alas, she might quickly come to find that her overhead costs are no longer matching up with what she’s making if a legion of fans aren’t there to support her where it counts: financially. 

    Whether or not this is a “stunt,” some believe Doja Cat is truly immune to public opinion (à la Ye) at this point and that, “No matter how you feel about Doja Cat, it is clear that she is living her life unapologetically right now. While some fans may be freaked out by it, she seems to be happy, which is all that matters.” No one appeared to have that stance about Ye, possibly because it’s as Dave Chappelle said and the one thing you can’t do in Hollywood is speak ill of the Jewish community. Not only “speak ill,” but also go on multiple venomous tirades regarding Jewish stereotypes and conspiracies. Starting with Ye tweeting in late 2022, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” Apart from misspelling DEFCON, the most glaring aspect of the tweet was Ye’s plea for attention, no matter how negative. An escalating need for it that only amplified as he doubled down on his offensive rhetoric, complete with praising Hitler and dining with Donald Trump and a white nationalist Holocaust denier at Mar-a-Lago. All of this occurred at the end of 2022. As 2023 began, Ye became fodder for awards show hosts (i.e., Jerrod Carmichael) and South Park in between gradually fading into the background. Perhaps he’ll try to reemerge at some point and holler, “Gotcha!” It was all an act. Just like Andy Kaufman. Just like, as fans insist, Doja Cat. 

    It’s the safest bet for coming back from bad behavior, after all. “Haha, just kidding! It was part of my ‘art.’” But, unlike Kaufman and Cohen (who Ye would be likely to point out are both Jewish so it must be some kind of conspiracy), the “performance art” being done now isn’t ironic, nor does it serve as a means to highlight a larger, unpleasant truth about humanity. Instead, the so-called performance art itself has become the larger, unpleasant truth about humanity. Even when people want to praise ultimately annoying actors and musicians, they’ll still dredge up Kaufman (because the devil can cite pop culture scripture for his purpose). For instance, Jennifer Lopez compared Jennifer Coolidge to Kaufman after working with her on Shotgun Wedding, in that you can never really tell if “that’s who she is” or she’s simply always “in character.” To put it another way, if she’s just making money off her natural persona in a similar way that Angus Cloud did with his Fez character (though it always irritated him when people wrote off his talent that way). 

    To further debunk the idea that Doja Cat is just “trolling” everyone (therefore, her behavior is “fine”), musicians who have had alter egos in the past have known better than to “trust the audience” with being able to separate the singer from the alter ego without making it explicit. From David Bowie with Ziggy Stardust to Beyoncé with Sasha Fierce to Madonna with Madame X, these were “characters” that had entire albums constructed around them. Whatever Doja’s forthcoming album turns out to be called, it doesn’t seem like the title is going to be Scarlet. Which might be the only way for her to backpedal on what she’s said and done at this point. And isn’t that what every celeb wants to do once they notice that their “artistic integrity” is affecting their bank account’s bottom line?

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • In Case Anyone Needed Additional Evidence That Celebrities Have More Influence Than Politicians, Look No Further Than the Plea to Taylor Swift Amid L.A.’s Hotel Strike

    In Case Anyone Needed Additional Evidence That Celebrities Have More Influence Than Politicians, Look No Further Than the Plea to Taylor Swift Amid L.A.’s Hotel Strike

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    “With great power comes great responsibility.” That’s the Spider-Man platitude so often wielded for those who are actually in offices of power. And yet, it’s become more and more apparent that politicians hold far less influence than a certain type of celebrity. One in particular being Taylor Swift. Swifties, like members of the Beyhive, hold the power to move mountains if and when it means something to their “leader.” Who they acknowledge as the person to “obey” far more than anyone serving a legitimate political institution. Knowing this, select state politicians in California, including Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, signed an open letter from Unite Here Local 11 (the hotel union representing striking workers) asking Swift to postpone her Los Angeles dates as a show of solidarity with hotel workers who have walked off the job in protest. 

    More than just a show of solidarity, the reason for “targeting” Swift stems from the knowledge of how the Eras Tour has caused an entire micro-economy to spring up in its wake. One that hotels in L.A. are profiting from majorly while the hotel workers’ “stand” against being taken advantage of goes unnoticed in the midst of “Taylor fever.” Playing five dates at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium, Swift is likely drawing in not only the majority of Los Angeles with these dates, but also many others from the far reaches of California (and beyond) who need a hotel room to stay in. Thus, the hotels’ ability, as mentioned in the open letter, to double and triple their rates due to the high demand. Workers’ rights be damned. 

    In effect, the reaction has been: that sounds like a “management problem,” not an “average person” problem. Let alone a “Swift problem.” And, considering the recent Grammys after-party she held at the Chateau Marmont, Swift has never much concerned herself with the plight of the worker (least of all the hotel worker). Many argue such things shouldn’t be her concern. After all, she’s “just” a singer. Or, as Swift’s recent collaborator, Lana Del Rey might say, “I’m a simple singer, I’m doing my best to navigate the waters of the constant tumultuous hardships in war-torn countries all over the world that I travel through monthly. For the record I’m doing the best I can and my intentions are better than most people[’]s that I know.” Such humility. In any case, the I’m “just” a celebrity defense doesn’t hold much water for someone like Swift (or Del Rey, who has her own sect of worshipful acolytes). For, as we’ve seen (and as referred to above), Swift is that rare breed of celebrity who has more clout than, let’s just say it, the president. At the mere drop of an instruction, Swift can get legions to do something (including register to vote, as she did when she, for the first time in her life, took a political stance by denouncing Tennessee Congressional candidate Marsha Blackburn). The catch is, she has to be interested in the cause. 

    And since “what matters” is, unfortunately, subjective, Swift didn’t bother to comment on the urgent plea from the Unite Here 11 union and select California politicians. Instead, she carried on with the dates as scheduled. After all, she’s a busy woman, and everyone should just be grateful she’s bothering to grace their city with her presence at all. Right? How is it her “job” to also get involved in local political disputes? This being something a few have pointed out, in addition to announcing that politicians are trying to deflect from their own less than stellar attempts at helping workers secure a better living wage. It’s “on them” to handle such things. Or should be. But the reality is, as the twenty-first century has forged ahead, celebrity power has only continued to outshine actual political power. Although U.S. politics and celebrity have long been linked in the modern era (especially when we look to the example of JFK and Marilyn Monroe), it’s ramped up to a scale that the Founding Fathers never could have possibly envisioned (therefore made provisions for in the Constitution).

    There was Madonna draping herself in an American flag and little else during a Rock the Vote campaign in 1990; there was Britney Spears influencing a California anti-paparazzi law that went into effect in 2010; there was Paris Hilton being dragged into the 2008 election campaign thanks to an anti-Barack Obama ad from John McCain likening the former’s “political goals” to wanting nothing more than to become another celebrity; there was Kim Kardashian posing on a 2017 cover of Interview as Jackie Kennedy and being referred to as “America’s New First Lady”; there was Jay-Z and Beyoncé pantomiming “dirt off their shoulders” with Obama at a fundraiser they put on for the president in 2012…the list goes on. And, of course, extends to the fact that celebrities often become politicians themselves (e.g., Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger), in lieu of “merely” exerting influence outside of actual political jurisdiction. 

    The slew of merchandise available that can have anyone nominating their “fave celeb” for the job of president via the simple line “[Insert Name Here] 4 President” is also eerily telling. Take, for example, the aforementioned Paris Hilton, who responded to McCain’s campaign ad by making a parody video called “Paris For President.” It wasn’t really a parody though. For there’s no denying Paris would take the job if she thought she could. But perhaps she’s not as delusional as her former mentee Kim’s now ex-husband, Kanye, who ran for president in 2020 despite 1) having no chance in hell and 2) missing a large number of states’ deadlines to appear on the ballot as a third-party candidate. Call it another prime example of celebrity hubris.

    Just as Swift has her own form of it. Which includes picking and choosing when to get involved with “petty” political matters. And when it comes to doing anything that might jeopardize the trajectory of her tour for the sake of hotel workers, Swift has made it apparent that she’s not exactly “comrade” material. Though the union and backing politicians that tried to implore her to be are obviously aware of the  “unofficial” political position she holds within the nation’s ever-diminishing heart.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Lizzo Just Kind of Ruined Barbie

    Lizzo Just Kind of Ruined Barbie

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    As though Barbie: The Album wasn’t already suffering enough, Lizzo had to go and get herself accused of, among other things, sexual harassment, general harassment and creating a hostile work environment. As for this listener, Lizzo’s music was never met with much excitement…particularly that weird Hercules homage that came in the form of “Rumors.” But the “rumors” here smack of having veracity, being that, as soon as the dancers came out with their tale of woe, documentary filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison also stepped up to validate their experiences by talking about what she experienced while briefly trying to direct a documentary about the singer in 2019. The attempt ended after two weeks, when Allison “witnessed how arrogant, self-centered and unkind she is.” And furthermore, “was not protected and… thrown into a shitty situation with little support.” In the end, she realized, “My spirit said to run as fast as you fucking can and I’m so grateful I trusted my gut.”

    Alas, the dancers on her The Special Tour were not fortunate enough to react as viscerally to their own gut. Guts, apparently that were shamed by none other than Miss Body Positivity herself. And yet, considering how obsessive Lizzo is vis-à-vis talking about bodies, it should come as no surprise to anyone that her approach is actually toxic. For, just as there is toxic positivity, so, too, is there toxic body positivity. Which brings us to the irony of Lizzo’s participation in Barbie. Not just the fact that Barbie has long been an emblem for making women feel bad about their bodies, but also because Lizzo’s song on the soundtrack is the first sonic offering to introduce us to Barbie Land. After all, it’s called “Pink.”

    And it sets the entire tone for how Barbie and her sistren live as Lizzo sings, “When I wake up in my own pink world/I get up outta bed and wave to my homegirls/Hey, Barbie (hey)/She’s so cool/All dolled up, just playin’ chess by the pool/Come on, we got important things to do…/In pink!/Goes with everything/Beautiful from head to toe I’m read’ to go, you know, you know/It’s pink!” The more accurate exclamation, however, is: “It’s body shaming!” This being a common occurrence in Barbie Land as well…if we’re to go by Barbie (Margot Robbie) being horrified to learn what cellulite looks like. 

    Playing “Pink” once was already bad enough, but then, director Greta Gerwig and soundtrack producer Mark Ronson decided to go and let Lizzo make another version of the song for day two of our introduction to Barbie Land. This one speaking to how Barbie has been infected with irrepressible thoughts of death. Complete with the reworked bridge that goes, “P, panic/I, I’m scared/N, nauseous/K, death!” Except that now, when viewers watch this scene as the song plays, the humor is sure to be drained from it as they can’t help but think about Lizzo screaming at her dancers in a similarly deadpan tone. 

    Then there’s the other retroactively cringe lyric that goes, “What you wearin’? Dress or suit?/Either way, that power looks so good on you.” Eh…maybe not. Because, taking into account Lizzo’s grotesque abuse of power over her dancers, this line takes on an entirely different meaning. One that doesn’t feel “empowering,” so much as oppressive. And, here, too, it bears noting that someone who has been oppressed themselves often ends up becoming the worst kind of oppressor. Funneling their desire for retribution into all the wrong people. As for “retribution” in general, there’s no denying the conservative pundits are going to have a field day with these revelations about Lizzo and how they ought to also discredit the core messages in Barbie. 

    Which is unfortunate, since Gerwig and her co-writer, Noah Baumbach, had done such a thorough job of addressing many of the complexities and paradoxes surrounding the doll. One, who, in the end, will still stand out most glaringly in people’s minds for making other women feel insecure about their own bodies. Just as Lizzo, of all people, has. Especially now that everything regarding her “authenticity” is being called into question. Likely from a point of no return. Because when Beyoncé stops saying your name (as she did in a live performance of the Queens Remix of “Break My Soul” at a show in Boston), you know things are dire. That, in short, you’ve left the magic cushion of Barbie Land and entered the Real World.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Pee-wee’s Big Capitulation: As “Weird” As Pee-wee Was, He Was Still A Material Boy of the 80s

    Pee-wee’s Big Capitulation: As “Weird” As Pee-wee Was, He Was Still A Material Boy of the 80s

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    Perhaps it’s difficult to imagine a world in which “weird” isn’t a sellable commodity. It certainly wasn’t an effortless sell in the Reagan 80s. Not until a then little-known persona by the name of Pee-wee Herman released a movie called Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. The year was 1985, and the director was also then little-known Tim Burton. A man who would, in addition to Pee-wee, go on to make “weird” “his thing.” And in the 80s, it seemed no one (at least not at the executive level) was yet fully aware of the kind of profitability that could signal. Until the surprise hit of Summer 1985 was Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (released the same year as Back to the Future and The Goonies, each with their own product placement machinations). It was to mark Burton’s first feature-length film, and one that he was given the opportunity to direct because Paul Reubens liked what he saw in Burton’s first two short films, Vincent and Frankenweenie. 

    As it turned out, there was no better man for the job, with the surreal, offbeat tone of the narrative (which takes a page from Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief [obviously with a more comedic slant]) perfectly suited to Burton’s already well-established style, complete with musical accompaniments from Danny Elfman. Needless to say, it was a style that would serve a plot like this for the better. Because the more over-the-top and bizarre it was, the easier it became to ignore a lack of “realism” and get invested in the loss of this man-boy’s bike. To feel his pain…and his joy when the red cruiser is at last found again.

    His obsession with it, some might argue, is purely sentimental. And after all, he’s sure to tell his nemesis, Francis (Mark Holton), “I wouldn’t sell my bike for all the money in the world.” This after Francis tries to buy it off him because his father said he could have anything he wanted for his birthday. Pee-wee is the first to burst the rich kid’s bubble, giving him a lesson on how some things aren’t for sale. And yet, more than an emotional attachment to the bike, it’s obvious that he values it because of the status it gives him because it’s so sought-after. It’s about the way it makes him feel. So, for as absurd as the movie might come across, there’s nothing more rooted in realism than that. Perhaps few films of the 80s are able to better embody the importance an object can have to a person. Become a very extension of that person (presaging how phones would do the same thing). Which doesn’t seem coincidental considering the decade it was released. 

    At a time of ramped-up consumerism, “synergy” was becoming an increasing buzz word in the realm of advertising. And in the 80s, cross-promotional items from movies were the name of the game. From Rambo lunchboxes to Slimer from Ghostbusters-themed Hi-C packaging (bless your resilient little guts if you imbibed the “Ecto Cooler”), the only thing better than tie-in products, for corporations anyway, was getting their wares placed in the film itself. With 1982’s E.T., Hershey’s set the trend for the pervasive product placement viewers would barely notice anymore after so many hours spent absorbing media in that fashion. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure would prove no exception to the 80s movie rule. Starting with the Murray bicycle itself, Pee-wee’s odyssey is as much a consumerist one as it is a quest to unearth his bike. 

    The ease with which companies got in bed with movies was, in part, spurred by Reagan’s deregulation policies, which themselves were the brainchild of big business and a collective of nefarious think tanks that banded together in the 1970s to present theories about how newly-enacted environmental and consumer protection laws were serving as nothing more than senseless red tape to slow down economic progress and give more fuel to stagflation. With everything suddenly in favor of “servicing the corporation,” there appeared to be no calling into question the “ethics” of presenting these products so flagrantly. And, after all, weren’t the movies just doing viewers a solid by reflecting the America they lived in right back to them? An endless parade of adverts all shouting the same thing, “Buy me!” Or, to use a subliminal message from They Live, “Obey.” Obey what, exactly? Society, capitalism and the status quo. 

    What’s more, Reubens and Burton are adept in the language of how to make someone appear left out for not having the “right” product. Or at least a product of a similar vein to the “hottest thing.” So it is that, just after Pee-wee’s bike is stolen, he’s forced to wander the strip mall street on foot, like some sort of peasant, while everyone else around him is on a bike. Even the motorized toys. Thus, he’s now been cut down to size, made “lesser than”—when only twenty minutes ago, he was the peacocking bike rider trying to outperform the tricks of the kids around him riding on less cumbersome wheels. The underlying message: you are what you own. Property is the thing—this being why it’s such a standout moment to see that one of the crowning additions to Pee-wee’s bike is an engraved plate that reads, “Property of Pee-wee Herman.” And what’s more essential to capitalistic adherence than owning property? Property that becomes so easy to confuse with “characteristics” of ourselves. So it is that Pee-wee’s identity is as entrenched in the bike as it is in making random, off-color laughing sounds. His refusal to accept any substitutes also speaks to the concept of brand loyalty. Nothing else will compare to or ever be as good as the bike Pee-wee had before. He wants what he wants, and nothing else will do. 

    In 80s America, this type of mentality was at an apex, with “nothing but the best” philosophies at play as a means to further distinguish Western capitalism from Soviet communism (and yes, the Soviets do get accused by Pee-wee of stealing his bike). Pee-wee, for as “different” as he is, still falls prey to that pervasive mentality. The vestiges of which continue to endure to this apocalyptic day. For, as the Pee-wee’s Big Adventure-influenced movie, Barbie, puts it, “Ideas live forever.” And capitalistic ones are all but impossible to deprogram people of. This, in part, is why Pee-wee Herman cannot exactly lay genuine claim to a phrase like, “I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.” For, in the end, he capitulates to not only being a slave to an object—his bike—but also to giving in to a monogamous relationship with Dottie. Because, the truth is, even the biggest “weirdos” just want stability and nice things. Surrendering to the warmth (becoming much more literal every day) provided by material trappings.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Fan/Performer Dynamic Keeps Getting Decidedly More Employer/Employee

    The Fan/Performer Dynamic Keeps Getting Decidedly More Employer/Employee

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    It used to seem so glamorous to be an “entertainer.” Yet even that word has connotations of being like a monkey with cymbals, “programmed” to perform no matter what the conditions or state of will and desire. In the latest instance of pelting something at musicians onstage (following the illustrious Bebe Rexha incident), Cardi B has proven herself to be a rare (but expected) rejector of “taking shit.” Or rather, “taking drink.” One that was splashed in her general direction as she was in the middle of partially lip-syncing “Bodak Yellow” at Drai’s Beachclub in Las Vegas. A town not exactly known for harboring people with the best etiquette (as Adele tried to anticipate). After all, it’s still considered America’s playground. Except that Cardi B wasn’t playing when she reacted to a large splash of someone’s drink getting deliberately thrown in her general direction by tossing a microphone back at that person. Though “tossing” is too soft a word for the pelting wrath she exhibited. 

    To add to the surreal, ironic quality of it all, the lyrics playing as Cardi launched the mic at the woman (yes, it was a woman) who sloshed her drink were, “If I see you and I don’t speak, that means I don’t fuck with you/I’m a boss, you a worker bitch/I make bloody moves.” How eerily apropos. Not just because things got violent, but because of how the fan/entertainer dynamic has been inverted of late. Where once famous people were endlessly confident about their role as the “superior” party, things have shifted to a point where fans feel entitled to demand more from the people they “admire” as they realize that, “technically,” they’re the ones who employ the celebrity. Keep expensive shelter over their head, posh food on their table and designer clothes on their back.

    So just as fans giveth, so can they taketh away. A reality Doja Cat was faced with recently when she went off on fans giving her grief for dating J.Cyrus, an “entertainer” himself, one supposes. His history of sexual misconduct (in addition to some unearthed racist tweets for good measure) have drawn ire from those who wanted Doja Cat to explain herself. In response, she said, “I don’t give a fuck what you think about my personal life, I never have and never will give a fuck what you think about me and my personal life. Goodbye and good riddance miserable hoes haha!” She then went on to degrade her fans by giving such “fiery” “advice” as, “If you call yourself a ‘kitten’ or fucking ‘kittenz’ that means you need to get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house.”

    Ah, the old jobist insult. But what sat even less well with her “Kittenz” was the fact that when a fan wrote in the comments section that they just wanted to hear her say she loved them, Doja spat back, “I don’t though cuz I don’t even know yall.” Where’s the lie? And yet, it’s the closest any celebrity has come to outright admitting how pathetic they think their fans are, and really, just need them for the cash. Except that Doja has also insisted she doesn’t actually need them anymore. Not just because she’s already rich now, but because she wants to emphasize that it was she who did the work to get where she is today. And yet, the complicated reality is that, without those legions of fans who paid attention to her from the beginning, she wouldn’t have those mountains of cash to fall back on after speaking her blunt, Liar Liar-level truth to them.

    This serves as the crux of the issue at hand of late for why fans feel an entitlement to celebrities as their “property” (much the same way employers do with their employees, ergo treating them with similar acts of abusive behavior that an employer themselves would never suffer). In a manner that society has never really seen before. And yes, the evolution of the internet commingling with fame and how it interacts with fans is a key part of that. 

    Taylor Swift, who has become a master in the art of cultivating parasocial relationships with her fans, knows something about that, too. And she wants “Swifties” to believe the contrary of what Doja has been touting. That she really cares about them and their well-being. Sure, maybe she does (at least enough to break up with Matty Healy due to the backlash against him). That is, as much as one can care about an endless sea of amorphous faces flashing the cash, so to speak, from the crowd. Her far more amenable attitude has translated into astronomical profits as she continues to parade her Eras Tour. Which, like Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, has created entire micro-economies in every town it stops in. Funnily enough, it was a Swiftie who waded into the comments section of Doja’s “I don’t even know yall” moment to explain the fan perspective on things: “And we don’t know you. But we supported you through thick and thin. Mind you you’d be nothing without us. You’d be working at a grocery store making songs on garageband miss high school dropout.” Maybe a bit harsh, but, to be fair, Doja’s willful lack of education shines through on songs like “Get Into It (Yuh).” 

    Cardi B, who is also rarely known for censoring herself or her emotions, seems to be better adept at showcasing the idea that, ultimately, her fans are just consumers (and there’s really nothing too personal about that). Hence, her innumerable product deals ranging from Pepsi to Reebok to…Whip Shots. Thus, it’s harder to mistake that “Cardi” is a brand she wants to sell for the benefit of Belcalis…and her family with Offset. The subject of which has provided narrative fodder for her latest collaboration with him, “Jealousy.” It is in said video that, incidentally, Cardi launches a shoe at Offset as he leaves their apartment in a huff. Don’t say she didn’t warn anyone who trifled with her that she has a knack for aiming unexpected objects when vexed. In fact, before she threw the microphone at her “fan,” she had already gotten into another altercation at Drai’s Beachclub with the DJ who cut her song off early. So admittedly, Cardi can be a little too quick to react with her microphone sometimes. And in the now viral video, you can see how it takes her only a split second to counterattack with that launch of a much more damaging object than liquid. 

    While the likes of Bebe Rexha and Ava Max were too stunned to instantaneously retaliate for the far more damaging abuse they got onstage, Cardi seems to have patently decided: enough. Almost like the barrage of employees during the Great Resignation who were struck with the overdue epiphany that they “didn’t have to take it anymore,” Cardi seems to have come to the same conclusion by actually fighting back against the “boss” who forgot that “workers” hold all the power. Until they need more money…

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Stop Calling Barbie “Escapist Fun”

    Stop Calling Barbie “Escapist Fun”

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    For the most part, Barbie has held fast to its reputation as an old school work of art in the (im)pure studio system sense of the word. Hand-painted sets, huge backlots and no expense spared for costuming all add up to a movie the likes of which modern audiences haven’t seen in who knows how long…when you don’t count Marvel and DC movies. The big budget allotted to Greta Gerwig’s film is always a rarity for a “women’s movie,” and one that doesn’t “technically” require a lot of special effects. Something Gerwig also offers in spades with subtler moments like Barbie’s convertible overturning, causing her to land with a thud that leaves behind animated pink smoke clouds. 

    Amid the usual backlash that always tends to arrive when something has been oversaturated, the accusation that Barbie is just more capitalist propaganda designed to bolster Mattel’s sales has perhaps only added to the idea that the movie is nothing but “fluff.” Or, that most odious term, “escapist fun.” The cliche that so many critics and “amateurs” (read: anyone with a website) like to use when describing a film that is comedic and fantastical. Therefore, automatically “frothy.” Barbie has proven no exception to the rule, despite its overtly pleading message for the demise of patriarchy. One that many men and women alike are uncomfortable processing unless they can laugh it off (ha ha ha!) and bill it as comedy rather than something that cuts way too close to the quick of reality.

    But Gerwig knows perhaps better than most that the truth is often far more painful than people can deal with “straight up”—it needs to be mitigated with a comedic tincture. And Barbie is sure to offer that in spades (something Mattel is likely happy about to help dilute the “mature thematic elements”). Between reminding audiences of how she drinks from a cup with nothing in it to how incongruous it is to walk around on tiptoes, the “subtle touches” are what contribute to Barbie’s hilarity. 

    Less funny, alas, is Ken (Ryan Gosling) horning in on Barbie’s (Margot Robbie) journey to the Real World (so Barbie can repair the rip in the portal between it and Barbie Land, therefore stop the cellulite she’s now got from spreading further). Not only is that in and of itself a signal of Ken’s (a.k.a. “men’s”) total lack of consideration for what Barbie wants (which is to go it alone), but the general assumption that men make about how their own wants and “needs” should usurp those of women. When Barbie realizes Ken has stowed away in her fly pink convertible (after he interrupts her solo singalong sesh to Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine”), she’s not, as he would expect, pleased to see him, so much as irritated by the inconvenience of his presence. “You’ll just slow me down,” she tells him. But he keeps needling and pressuring. And so, of course, wanting to be “nice” (as all women who twist themselves in knots to be “liked” do), she lets him stay along for the ride. 

    This tiny act of “kindness” on her part turns out to unleash the main “Act Two problem” of Barbie: Ken unearthing that patriarchy governs the Real World. A Pandora’s box (or Ken’s box) that, once opened, can only unleash all the same patriarchy-driven ills of the Real World onto Barbie Land. A consequence that Barbie hardly anticipated when she first set out to correct the breach in realms. One, as Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) tells her, that’s caused by the sadness of the little girl who’s playing with her. Only, as it transpires, the girl playing with her isn’t so little. She’s a grown woman and a mom, not to mention an assistant (who dabbles as an illustrator of Barbie concepts) of some kind to the CEO at Mattel (though, in the credits, she’s billed as “employee at Mattel”—for everyone below the executive level is just “employee,” right? No need to get more specific than that). Her name? Gloria (America Ferrera). Her venomous tween daughter? Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). It’s the latter who cuts Barbie down to size, so to speak, by calling her a fascist who represents everything that’s wrong with the world, and how women are viewed in it. 

    Causing her to cry for the second time since being in the Real World, Barbie can’t believe that “her kind” is seen like this by the women she thought she had brought peace, harmony and equal rights to. Subsequently approached at her lowest moment by handlers (not Ruth or Barbara) from Mattel, she goes with them in their black SUV to meet the CEO (Will Ferrell), who has big plans to put her back in her box (yes, it’s very symbolic of what men do to women in general as well). Barbie, still too trusting and naive after exiting the Garden of Eden, as it were (indeed, Gerwig has turned the Adam and Eve story on its ear by calling out how Ken is sprung from Barbie’s proverbial rib), goes along for the ride. All while Ken watches from afar, now with the diabolical knowledge of patriarchy that he plans to take back to the other Kens in Barbie Land so that it will become the “Kendom.”

    As viewers watch Barbie become unsettled by the subjugation and constantly-looming sense of anxiety she endures as a woman (caught somewhere between being a “real girl” and a Barbie doll, for a dash of Pinocchio influence), it’s almost impossible not to squirm in one’s seat over how familiar it all is. Ergo, not exactly making for much in the way of “escapism”—though one can see how it would be necessary to “Trojan horse” Barbie through that “visual cotton candy” lens. Bountiful in the use of bright colors and The Wizard of Oz-esque sets. For anyone can be distracted from deeper meaning by aesthetic beauty. Which is so often how Barbie has been overlooked as a “being” with more substance than her appearance. “Authentically artificial,” as Gerwig would say (though of her sets, not Barbie). 

    What’s more, Barbie explores, through Gloria, how women are expected to “put aside childish things” like playing with Barbies once they reach Sasha’s age. Already thrust toward the cold, hard adulthood that will stamp out their former comfortableness with exploring who they are through play, and through projections of different selves onto Barbie, or other toys they might engage with. As Ferrera put it, “Growing up is about leaving behind childish things, particularly for women. And not so much men [who] get to have their man caves and play their video games forever. And women, it’s like, ‘Toys away, do the chores, grow up.’ That was really what touched me about Gloria as a character. This woman somehow made it to adulthood holding onto the value of play, and the value of aspiration and imagination is, in a way, counterculture. [Women] can be a lot of things at once…we can be joyful and playful and imaginative and childlike and be a grown woman, professional, taken seriously.” At least, in the world that Barbie sets up. 

    Unfortunately, in the Real World outside of Barbie’s Real World, it’s as Proust (a fitting luminary to quote considering the “Proust Barbie” reference in the movie) said: “There is hardly a single action we perform in that phase which we would not give anything, in later life, to annul. Whereas what we ought to regret is that we no longer possess the spontaneity which made us perform them. In later life we look at things in a more practical way, in full conformity with the rest of society, but adolescence is the only period in which we learn anything.” A fact that Gloria seems to understand only too well. And something that Barbie, as she decides to navigate her way through the bizarre innerworkings of the patriarchal Real World, will also come to apprehend once she becomes a “permanent resident.” 

    So to call Barbie “escapist fun” diminishes what it actually does. And that is put a glaring spotlight on how women in the Real World are still subjected to the same form of treatment found in the era of classic films from which Gerwig culled much of her inspiration for the sumptuous visuals that have branded Barbie with this misleading assignation.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Why Aidan’s Visceral Reaction to Not Wanting to Go Into Carrie’s Apartment Ever Again Is Emblematic of New York-Specific PTSD

    Why Aidan’s Visceral Reaction to Not Wanting to Go Into Carrie’s Apartment Ever Again Is Emblematic of New York-Specific PTSD

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    With the latest episode of And Just Like That…, the one everyone is raving about/saying it’s marked a shift for the better in the series, director Ry Russo-Young opens on a scene of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) in bed wearing a shirt that says, “The Most New York You Can Get.” It’s a fitting way to kick off “February 14th,” as the most New York you can actually get is being incapable of walking down certain streets or going into certain places. Not because it’s too expensive, but because, in another iteration of your life, you were emotionally wounded there. Irrevocably.

    They say you can be traumatized anywhere, but, in truth, there’s no more affecting place for experiencing trauma than one, New York City. The “greatest” city in the world isn’t so great when every street corner, every establishment and, yes, every apartment is a potential landmine for unwanted memories bubbling to the surface and causing the long-buried pain to feel oh so fresh. The usual staunch defenders of the city might say that there’s nowhere else on Earth that can give you such “profound” experiences (most of which include, at some point, vomiting on the subway). That nowhere else will “give you the chance” to feel so much…until you ultimately feel nothing at all. Numbness as a defense mechanism. Repackaged as New Yorkers being “experts at minding their own business.” When, the fact is, they’ve been trained to turn off any reaction whatsoever in the name of self-protection. And perhaps being smug about what Carrie once phrased as: “The fact is [New Yorkers have] pretty much done and seen it all. It takes quite a bit to shock us.”

    The same goes for Sex and the City-turned-And Just Like That… viewers, who have seen it all when it comes to Carrie’s relationship pattern. Which goes: Big, Aidan, Big, Aidan, Big…and now Aidan again. What with his character being the last man standing after “John” died (and, to an extent, Chris Noth…when his career died). The stale story maneuver to pivot in this direction yet again presumes that Aidan doesn’t have the self-respect to cut Carrie loose for good—the way Carrie didn’t in order to do the same to Big.

    Such lack of self-respect is something that’s actually not that far-fetched when considering how long people choose to stay in New York after “making a life” there—the ultimate euphemism for, “Well, I found a job and enough people to get drunk with so why rock the boat and leave?” Except that Aidan actually did, only to be pulled back in by the woman who once asked the question that proves why New Yorkers are the most annoying breed on the planet: “I’m always surprised when anyone leaves New York. I mean where do they go?” Probably to a place with fewer triggers. 

    And yet, Carrie is only too down to be the triggerer when she invokes the spirit that is Aidan by reaching out to him via email. Which is ironic for the person who once insisted (in yet another episode when her romance with him was about to be rekindled), “I don’t believe in email. I’m an old-fashioned gal. I prefer calling and hanging up.” In 2023, Carrie is slightly less puerile, but not by much…she still abruptly closes her computer like a scared little girl when she sees that there’s a new message from him in her inbox. This, of course, harkening back to the “Baby, Talk Is Cheap” episode where she does cave in to signing up for an email address (already late to the game in 2001) and AIM account (again, 2001). Her one “Buddy” on that messaging apparatus being “AidanNYC” (this lack of originality certainly suits Carrie’s writing style). And when his screen name appears online, she has a pre-OK Boomer moment when she freaks out and asks, “Oh my God, he’s online! Can he see me?” Miranda, not bothering to explain to her the finer points of how the internet works, assures her that, no, he cannot see her. At least not literally. 

    Galvanized, she gets up and heads over to his apartment, having initially told Miranda in an unsent email, “Aidan says he’s not interested, but he seems interested.” This being Rapist Logic 101. Which is further emphasized by her phone conversation with Miranda during which she says, “His words said no, but his kiss said yes” and “I know he still feels it.” Apparently, they both still do decades later. Even if Carrie should be off-put by how Aidan is dressed like Elvis trying to make Army attire fashionable. 

    After making their rendezvous for “February 14th,” as though pretending each has no idea what that means, another callback to previous episodes of SATC occurs when Carrie starts to think she’s being stood up. Maybe Aidan is just a scorpion who lured her into his stinging trap of retribution for all the emotional torment she caused him (which is really what he should have done). Channeling “The Agony and the ‘Ex’-tasy” episode where she waits interminably at Il Cantinori for people to show up to the birthday dinner she didn’t want to have, Carrie starts to feel exposed when she sees Aidan is already ten minutes late (this also echoing the season two episode where Samantha gets stood up at a restaurant by a guy who “we’d” his way all the way home). But no, turns out there was a mixup (Il Cantinori/El Cantinoro-style) and he’s simply at the restaurant next door. To be sure, the symbolism of these two still not being in the same place bears noting. Even if there’s the emphasis that they’re now both “on the same page.” 

    Though they never were before, least of all in season four, when Carrie, again, practically begged him to ignore his better judgment and be with her. “You broke my heart!” he finally screams after she makes the selfish case for them getting back together in “Baby, Talk Is Cheap.” Perhaps aware of the power she holds over him when, minutes later, he gives in and runs to her apartment (after she childishly runs away from his because he rightly berated her) to bone, Carrie can make the connection that she is the Big in his life. The one great love he can’t say no to…no matter how poorly she treats him. And there’s something to be said for the parallel to how NYC residents also view New York. No matter how toxic, unhealthy or straight-up miserable it is, its status as a “great love” means it can do no wrong, regardless of the repeated joy it seems to get from burning those who “love” it so much. If by “love” what is meant is delighting in masochism and calling it “making a sacrifice for something wonderful.” 

    After their sexual reunion in “Baby, Talk Is Cheap,” Aidan asks Carrie, “You wanna do this to make up for the past? Relieve your conscience?” She insists that no, the reason she wants to get back together is, “I still love you.” He pretends he needs to think about it, but the next morning, he’s outside her window, calling out, “Okay let’s give it a shot.” “You wanna come up?” she replies. Even then, he avoided it, insisting he has to take Pete for a walk. Perhaps knowing, in some way, that Carrie’s “single girl” apartment was going to be his bane. And that’s what it still ultimately is. For Carrie will always see herself that way: someone who can just flit about like the twenty-something NY “it girl” she can’t shake from her self-perception. 

    Maybe that’s why she doesn’t pre-fathom how jarring it will be for Aidan to see the apartment again, taking him there after dinner. Not realizing where they are until he gets out of the cab, his face falls as he remarks, “When you said go back to your place, I just thought you had a different place… At the restaurant, I just thought, ‘How great. This feels really great. We’re back where we started.’ But this is where we ended. With the fuckin’ wall I couldn’t break through and those floors, remember, that I redid? It’s all bad. And it’s just, it’s all in there.”

    Carrie soothes, “Okay yes, it’s the same place, but we’re not in the same place.” Constantly assuring him that she’s different (therefore, “it’s” different) and better every time they’re about to start things up anew, Aidan can’t quite grasp the veracity of that declaration when she’s continued to live in the same apartment. So unaffected by all the shit that went down there. He finally says, “I can’t go in there again with all that.” Aidan’s trauma response is the culmination of the number New York (and those who flock there) can do to a person. So much that said person can’t even seem to grasp the way they feed on the psychological deterioration it causes after a while. Which is why Aidan then whips around and announces, “Hey, fuck it. This is New York. They have hotels, right?” Aidan’s sudden desire to bang in hotels in lieu of ever going back into that trauma epicenter called Carrie’s apartment also provides an interesting full-circle moment in that Carrie had her affair with Big in hotels throughout Manhattan during season three (side note: another callback to the original series is when Carrie uses the cheesy “Great Sexpectations” pun that served as the title of SATC’s second episode of season six). 

    Alas, like those who move back to New York after leaving it, Aidan ignores all the reasons he left (both the city and the relationship) so that he can learn the hard way, yet again, that Carrie, the so-called embodiment of the city (see: “The Most New York You Can Get”), will only cause more pain. For what could possibly go wrong if he refuses to set foot in the apartment she would never abandon? This made peak evident in season four’s “Ring A Ding Ding,” when Carrie is faced with the very real possibility of losing her underpriced abode as she, funnily enough, is forced to buy it back from Aidan after their relationship ends, again. 

    Yet what Carrie is most upset about isn’t Aidan, but the apartment. Pacing the “living room,” she gives the voiceover, “As I thought about leaving the apartment I had lived in for the past decade, I realized how much I would miss it. Through everything, it had always been there for me.” So yes, Carrie 1) loves her apartment too much to ever leave and 2) has the type of Stockholm Syndrome that would never allow her to see that the apartment is the source of the trauma she refers to with “through everything.” There’s a reason Aidan is smart enough to believe that no amount of sage could get rid of the energy in that place, and that Carrie’s apartment is nothing but “bad juju.” Of course, so is New York itself, with all the places one is initially so fond of while they’re at an emotional crest falling prey to the invariable emotional dip once such places become tied to pain.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Barbie: The Album Might Cut It In Barbie Land, But Not in the Real World

    Barbie: The Album Might Cut It In Barbie Land, But Not in the Real World

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    With a movie as instantaneously revered as Barbie, it’s only natural to expect an accompanying soundtrack that might do it justice. And sure, the Barbie Soundtrack, billed as Barbie: The Album, is filled with its share of sonic “moments,” but there’s nothing that ultimately seems to tie it all together for a greater sense of seamless cohesion. What’s more, the three songs that stand out the most, Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night,” Charli XCX’s “Speed Drive” and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?,” only make the other songs sound “throwaway” in comparison (granted, “Speed Drive” has gotten plenty of hate from those who don’t see the brilliance of a woman who compares Britney and will.i.am’s work together to Lennon and McCartney’s).

    Even Lizzo, who is, for whatever reason, usually counted on for a “hit,” kicks things off with a less than auspicious offering in the form of “Pink.” A track that works much more effectively when one is hearing it played against the scenes at the beginning of the movie, wherein Lizzo reworks some of the lyrics depending on the altered scenario from the previous day—when it was all staring contentedly into a glassless mirror and pretend-drinking from a cup. Not to mention giant blowout parties with planned choreography and a bespoke song. That latter being Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night”—the most “Mark Ronson-y” number of the lot. And yes, it bears noting that Ronson, who collaborated with Andrew Wyatt, lived “in Barbie Land for over a year,” as he metaphorically phrases it. Trying to ingratiate himself in “the sugar high of Barbie, but also the crash.” This being part of the missive from screenwriters Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach that appears alongside Ronson’s in the soundtrack’s liner notes. But when you learn that the “Adam and Eve” songs of the record (a.k.a. the ones that Ronson initially made for it) were “Dance the Night” and “I’m Just Ken,” it tracks that such a divergent jumping-off point would lead to some major sonic schizophrenia.

    The hodgepodge vibe makes all the more sense when Ronson goes on in his note to freely admit of the process, “…my main job here was to sit with Greta, brainstorm our dream list of artists and hone it down to what scene we wanted it for.” In other words, they would take whoever accepted from their “dream list” without any thought about whether that would ultimately make for a “meshing” soundtrack. But, as Mattel has shown with its marketing blitzkrieg to synergize with the movie, it’s not about what necessarily “works,” so much as appealing to as many “Barbies” as possible. The more variation there is on the soundtrack, the more potential for its songs to climb different charts. It’s all in the name of bad, dirty capitalism. But at least Barbie the movie plays with that a little more knowingly than its soundtrack, so blatantly designed to be everything to everyone (kind of like a woman).

    Needless to say, there are better ways to embody a sugar high/crash trajectory that doesn’t include 1) Sam Smith spitting misogynistic lyrics as “a character” (though, per Ronson, a discussion of The Feminine Mystique with Gerwig inspired the chorus) and 2) the non sequitur appearance of Karol G’s “WATATI,” which, although the beat slaps, features lyrics that don’t really sync with the message of the movie. For Barbie, in this context, hardly gives off the signal that says, “Papi, let’s go to the club to have a good time/A lot of smoke, Aguardiente to get dizzy.” No, instead, every Barbie—Stereotypical or not—is more concerned with other, more meaningful endeavors in Barbie Land, none of which pertain to seeking out Ken for a good time, so much as having him around as an accessory.

    And perhaps that’s what’s most surprising of all about Barbie: The Album—how little it lyrically ties into a film about smashing the patriarchy. Which infects Barbie Land after Tame Impala’s “Journey to the Real World” takes them through multiple landscapes until finally reaching Venice Beach. On her first pink convertible leg of the journey, however, Barbie opts for singing along to Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.” This making the cut for the Best Weekend Ever edition of the soundtrack…except it’s performed by Brandi and Catherine Carlile.

    Following Tame Impala on the “normal” edition though is the generic sound of Dominic Fike’s “Hey Blondie.” A “number” that comes across as though either Ronson was listening to too many Starbucks-sold compilation albums or Gerwig’s mumblecore Sacramento influence infected the mood for this particular track. Either way, the muted tones of Fike only end up making the listener wish Blondie was singing instead of this dude singing something called “Hey Blondie.” Again trying to “tap in” to the Ken persona, chauvinism rears its plastic head as Fike drones, “Hey, blondie, there’s a million eyes on you/Do you ever get curious?/Hey, blondie, there’s a million minds on you/Do you ever get furious?…/Hey, blondie, oh, hey, blondie/Hey, blondie, could you maybe just slide towards me?/Don’t want anything serious.” It might actually be the least listenable offering of Barbie: The Album. Maybe that’s why they up the “star quotient” again by placing HAIM’s song, “Home,” after it.

    Considering how much of an influence The Wizard of Oz was on Barbie (along with many other classic films Gerwig has been happy to advise people on), HAIM’s “Home” instantly connects to the old chestnut, “There’s no place like home.” Something Barbie realizes rather quickly out there in the “Kendom” known as Real World’s system of patriarchy. Even though “Home” is another one of the more standout tracks on the record, it barely registers when actually viewing Barbie. Instead overpowered by the pop-y, synthetic glitz of “ditties” like Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s “Barbie World” (a.k.a. the ripoff of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” that proves: ain’t nothin’ like the real thing). Produced by Rostam and Danielle Haim, the song is tinged with electro beats that immediately draw comparisons to the 2012-era vibe Taylor Swift was pulling with Midnights. And when the HAIM sisters croon in unison, “I’m going home/Take me home, just take me home/Take me home,” one can really feel Barbie’s pain in not quite knowing where that is anymore after her foray into the Real World.

    As though to drive that looming sadness, um, home, Ronson places the gloomy, existential “What Was I Made For?” in the wake of HAIM. A shining diamond among most of the other froth, it does serve a useful enough purpose in sonically revealing the cracks in Barbie’s veneer (that crash after the sugar rush assignment at work again). Unfortunately, the mood is totally killed/shifted abruptly again by the next song, brought to you by The Kid LAROI, himself known for an undercuttingly misogynistic song called “Without You.” Which is certainly the polar opposite of his sentiments on “Forever & Again.” And yet, rather than “serving devotion and romance,” it’s giving creepy stalker who wants to keep “his girl’s” blood in a vial necklace (no Billy Bob shade intended). This being manifest in lyrics like, “When it all falls down, and no one is around/‘Til my breath runs out, six feet underground/I’ma be there, this will never end/I’ll always be there, forever and again” and “‘Til my blood runs cold, I won’t let you go.” Except that all Barbie wants is to be let the fuck go.

    The devoted male tone persists on Khalid’s (who has also joined Eilish on a project before in the form of 2018’s “lovely”) “Silver Platter.” A song that wants to be in the spirit of late 90s “You know I love you girl” artists like Brian McKnight…by way of Ken. Because, yes, unfortunately the rule on this record seems to be that any male artist with a song on it has to be speaking from the perspective of Ken. Case in point, Khalid begging, “Oh, oh/Give me a chance/To prove that I can/Give you the world/If I was your man, yeah.” Its unrequited love aura is in keeping with the spirit of Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” (which could still never hold a candle to Gosling singing “You Always Hurt the Ones You Love” in Blue Valentine). And yes, Gosling clearly wants to remind people about the triple threat status that got him the gig on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club in the first place, showcasing his acting, dancing and singing talents once again for the role of Ken.

    Nonetheless, PinkPantheress gives Ken the shaft by mentioning some guy named Johnny on “Angel” (as in “Johnny Angel”). And it’s Johnny she’s yearning for when she laments, “Johnny, my baby, did it always have to end this way?/‘Cause one day/One day, my baby just went away/My angel (my angel)/You’re what haunts me now that you’re away.” The song itself seems as though it wants to represent the overall wide-ranging gamut of genres on the album by sounding like an A. G. Cook-produced, Irish strings-heavy wet dream (side note: it’s actually produced by BloodPop®, Count Baldor and PinkPantheress). Its sweet trilling vocals then lead jarringly into GAYLE’s “butterflies,” a “punk-y” cover of Crazy Town’s “Butterfly”—the song no one wanted to be revived. And save for the fleeting lines, “People feel better when they put you in a box/But the plastic’s gonna melt if you’re the one to make it hot,” it’s difficult to understand how this song fits in at all with the rest. Which brings us to Corporate Success 101: Appeal to Everyone.

    Tellingly, there are few songs on the soundtrack that make it past three minutes, with each one perfectly packaged for easy-to-consume TikTok glory. As for the “eclecticism,” its aforementioned purposes are to tick as many “chart-topping” boxes as possible. With Ava Max’s “Choose Your Fighter,” the soundtrack achieves that potential anew as pop reenters the chat with upbeat rhythms produced by Cirkut. Max then gets on the inclusivity horn with lyrics that include, “I know this world can be a little confusing/ No walk in the park/But I can help you solve the riddle/You’re perfect as you are.” This, by the way, is something Barbie realizes when she sees an old woman sitting at a bus stop (who was rumored to be none other that the real Barbie, Barbara Handler…until fans were somewhat disappointed to learn it’s actually costume designer Ann Roth). Max continues, “If you wanna break out of the box [more tired Barbie innuendos]/Wanna call all of the shots/If you wanna be sweet or be soft/Then, go off/If you wanna go six inch or flat [a reference to the blue pill, red pill choice Barbie gets from Weird Barbie [Kate McKinnon])/Wanna wear hot pink or black/Don’t let nobody tell you you can’t/‘Cause you can.” Unless you live in one of the many nations where women are daily oppressed.

    She then bursts into the chorus, “You can bе a lover or a fighter, whatevеr you desire/Life is like a runway and you’re the designer/Wings of a butterfly [nice nod to GAYLE], eyes of a tiger/Whatever you want, baby, choose your fighter.” So we’re mixing video game metaphors in with doll ones now, too? Yes. Because it’s all about synergy. Which translates to sales—for all things Mattel.

    After a very odd sonic safari, we finally reach the end of the rainbow (because The Wizard of Oz and also rainbows are eclectic, get it?). And it concludes with the ultra chirpy “Barbie Dreams,” which might rival “It’s A Small World” for its relentlessly annoying cheer. Sung by FIFTY FIFTY and Kaliii, it doesn’t feel like the greatest choice to close out the album. Indeed, “What Was I Made For?” would have been the correct decision for the denouement. But, if you’ve been listening to the album this long, you’re probably already well-aware that the “best decisions” weren’t always a factor in terms of “placements.” Yet it’s a challenge to have good placements when most of the songs don’t really fit together to begin with.

    As for those wondering why Matchbox 20’s “Push” isn’t on the soundtrack, one will just have to settle for Ryan Gosling covering it on the Best Weekend Ever edition. Because it would be far too big of a lie to call it the Best Soundtrack Ever edition. In truth, Birds of Prey, another movie in which Margot Robbie plays an iconic character, does a superior job of effortlessly melding all the tones and themes of the movie into the soundtrack. From “Boss Bitch” to “Sway With Me,” Birds of Prey hits all the right notes on cohesive soundtracking.

    But maybe what could have tied Barbie: The Album together is what’s really missing from the soundtrack: the pure bubblegum-ness of Kesha, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The latter two (along with Charli XCX) actually appeared in some form or other on the Promising Young Woman Soundtrack. Itself a sort of Real World Barbie homage. Though Emerald Fennell didn’t know it at the time. Nor could she have known that she would also play the discontinued pregnant Midge doll in the film. Which probably made her too busy to weigh in (no pun intended) on the soundtrack’s direction. Though it might have helped in hindsight… For while Barbie might have revived cinema (at least for the summer), it hasn’t quite delivered on a resuscitation of the soundtrack.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Unlike Most Women in Music, Tony Bennett Didn’t Have to Constantly Change His Image In Order to Endure

    Unlike Most Women in Music, Tony Bennett Didn’t Have to Constantly Change His Image In Order to Endure

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    “I was like the Madonna and the Michael Jackson of my day,” Tony Bennett once told Conan O’Brien during a 1993 interview. The notable distinction between Madonna and Michael being that the former constantly changes her image. Jackson, like Tony, did not bother to do anything significant in that arena. In fact, he leaned into his image (awash with sequins, fedoras and exposed socks) all the more as the years went by: the very thing that can (and usually does) turn one into a caricature. The same went for Bennett, who stalwartly refused to update his look (a black tuxedo and bowtie) as the decades passed. Not even after he first “resurged” onto the scene in a big way at the beginning of the 90s. For Bennett had already capitulated to rebranding once before, at the height of the psychedelic rock craze. Or rather, just after it—releasing Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today! in 1970, complete with psychedelic cover art. 

    The so-called image change and attempt to do something different was immediately lambasted, and Bennett was soon after dropped from Columbia Records. An interesting reaction, when considering that most women who refuse to change their look or sound over time end up being cast aside and relegated to whatever time period they rose to prominence in (e.g. Nancy Sinatra with the 60s, Stevie Nicks with the 70s, Cyndi Lauper with the 80s, Alanis Morissette with the 90s, Britney Spears with the 00s, and so on and so forth).

    Mariah Carey, too, spoke of Columbia Records trying to “button her up with the 90s” by capping off the decade with a greatest hits album of hers. Carey wasn’t having it, and released 1999’s Rainbow the year after #1s came out. With “Heartbreaker” as the lead single, it served as a complete sonic shift into her artful melding of pop and hip hop, which she had already hinted at plenty with 1997’s Butterfly. An album, incidentally, she had to fight tooth and nail to secure some creative control over, made perhaps easier (or harder, depending on who you ask) as a result of being in the process of cutting ties romantically with Tommy Mottola, then CEO of Sony Music (a.k.a. her boss).  

    Carey has reinvented herself to a lesser extent than Madonna since the dawn of the 2000s, with the latter unveiling new “personae” as readily as a new outfit, ramping up what some critics would call her “shtick” with more intensity than ever at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Starting with Music in 2000, Madonna continued to reinvent herself tirelessly, with the glam cowgirl aesthetic giving way to a Che Guevara-inspired war rebel guise for 2003’s American Life. She then continued with a 70s-chic dancing queen image for 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor, a sexy boxer for 2008’s Hard Candy, a molly fan on 2012’s MDNA and a romantic freedom fighter on 2015’s Rebel Heart.

    By the time 2019’s Madame X arrived, Madonna decided to roll all of her many personae into one with the marketing speech, “Madame X is a secret agent traveling around the world, changing identities, fighting for freedom, bringing light to dark places. Madame X is a dancer, a professor, a head of state, a housekeeper, an equestrian, a prisoner, a student, a mother, a child, a teacher, a nun, a singer, a saint, a whore…a spy in the house of love.” That last phrase being a clear nod to the Anaïs Nin book of the same name. For Madonna is nothing if not a bridge between high and so-called low art. All while also showing that to stay “relevant” in the music business as a woman, you have to be willing to shed previous images as willingly as snakes shed their skin in order to survive. Madonna being among one of the few women musicians to do that, therefore have a chance at competing with Bennett’s far more effortless longevity. And yes, even Lady Gaga (the best Madonna impersonator currently working today), Bennett’s “bestie” in recent years, is another example of a woman who has to reinvent. Even aesthetically static Taylor Swift (who can always be counted on for the same blonde hair and red lipstick) has chosen to perform this year under the banner of the Eras Tour…overtly wanting to highlight the notion that she’s reinvented herself repeatedly over her now decade-plus career.

    Then, of course, there’s Cher, who occasionally gets held up as an example of a woman who has “lasted” for decades, though she isn’t actually putting out any new material or bothering to tour anymore. Madonna stands alone in that category (even if her recent bacterial infection might have put a delay on her forthcoming Celebration Tour). And it’s precisely because she’s among the few to have put in the ceaseless work to remain in the spotlight that’s “required” only of a woman. This then getting branded as “desperate” or “gimmicky” as critics insist she essentially ought to put herself out to pasture…as she once phrased it during a 1992 interview with Jonathan Ross. And it was also in that interview that she herself called out Jackson’s total inability to reinvent himself now and again, telling Ross, “I really wanted him to cut his hair. Sometimes I think it’s good to cut your hair and start all over again.” She then added, “I wanted him to get rid of those loafers and the white socks. I just thought, you know, just try something new.” Clearly, there’s a reason their “friendship” didn’t last too much longer after attending the 1991 Oscars ceremony together. For no man likes to be reminded that his “look,” therefore his entire self, is “outmoded.” 

    Male musicians, instead, appear to prefer coasting on the laurels of what secured them their fame and accolades when they were younger, never needing to try anything else different afterward because society simply does not place that onus upon them. Nor does society judge men for continuing to pursue their art well past “middle age.” In point of fact, Bennett, like Madonna, referred to artists such as Picasso when he said, “Right up to the day they died, they were performing. If you are creative, you get busier as you get older.” Few people have been as willing to “grant” that to Madonna, who has also vowed to never stop (hear: “Like It Or Not,” with its lyrics, “You can love me or leave me/‘Cause I’m never gonna stop”). And yes, in 2015, she name-checked Picasso as well, stating, “I like to compare myself to other kinds of artists like Picasso. He kept painting and painting until the day he died. Why? Because I guess he felt inspired to do so. Life inspired him, so he had to keep expressing himself, and that’s how I feel.”

    Of course, when Bennett said it, it was fine. When Madonna said it, it was self-aggrandizing. Proof that she was conceited enough to hold herself in such high regard as a “master” like Picasso. Well, where’s the lie? Madonna is an undisputed master of pop music. And even Bennett conceded to that in 1996, when he presented her with an Artist Achievement Award at the Billboard Music Awards. To introduce her, he confirmed what most already knew: “She has consistently surprised and delighted us with her fascinating transformations, with a dazzling display of invention. She’s kept us on the edge of our seat—wait till you see what’s next.” 

    With Bennett and musicians like him, there’s never any such excitement or anticipation. Rather than consistently reinventing, they merely stay consistent. Nonetheless, their reverence goes unquestioned. And while Madonna is a master in pop music, Bennett, in contrast, was a master in “crooning,” specifically “American standards” (all well and good, but not exactly leaving much room for “originality”). This included covering work from Rat Pack staples like Sammy Davis Jr. And whenever Bennett sang the latter’s “I’ve Gotta Be Me,” it proved a telling anthem for a man who never had to compromise the way he looked or sounded (save for that one time in 1970 that put him off even the mere idea of experimentation forever).

    Not solely because of his vocal talent that didn’t need any additional “bells and whistles,” but because he had the luxury of being a male performer. A fact that meant alterations to appearance (and sound) were hardly “requisite” the way they tacitly are for women who want to enjoy the same longevity in the music industry. Which is perhaps why Madonna remains a rare example, with even Janet Jackson disappearing more than once or twice into the abyss and Kylie Minogue only happening to touch on the virality phenomenon with “Padam Padam.” But that, too, is a direct result of Madonna’s boundary-breaking for women in Minogue’s age bracket. Boundaries that, for men, do not exist at all.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Tony Bennett: The Model Italian-American (Or At Least Less Affronting Than Most)

    Tony Bennett: The Model Italian-American (Or At Least Less Affronting Than Most)

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    As a second generation Italian-American (with his mother, Anna Suraci, born right after his grandmother arrived in the U.S.), Tony Bennett had the potential to become another caricature of the nationality. And, funnily enough, he was actually known for being the “class caricaturist” at school. Luckily, he never made too much of one out of himself—at least, not when it came to being a caricature of the “paesan.” More specifically, the Italian-American. A very different breed altogether from the Italian, and a distinction that isn’t made frequently or with enough emphasis…especially if the continued success of Super Mario Bros. is to be a barometer.

    Compared, as he often was, to someone like Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin (fellow “crooners,” as it were), Bennett was far less cornball and/or prone to embracing the mob associations that, to this day, go hand in hand with the public perception of “being Italian.” This was somewhat ironic considering he ended up enlisting the services of Ray Muscarella to assist with kick-starting his career. Bennett’s eventual manager had plenty of mafia ties…as was, apparently, to be expected back in “those days” of NYC. In fact, you might say there would be no Tony Bennett without the mafia (and Bob Hope, who rechristened him as Tony Bennett instead of Anthony Benedetto). From vocal coaches to arrangers and composers to booking agents, there seemed to be no expense spared on getting Bennett the help he needed to hit the big-time. Of course, those expenses were expected to be paid back in full…ad infinitum. For once you owe the mob, you owe them for life (just ask Joel Maisel). 

    But, in Bennett’s case, he was able to liberate himself in the early 1960s with a purported payoff of $600,000 for them to “leave him alone” (Garbo-style). This came at a time when the perpetually carousing Rat Pack was at a peak, complete with Ol’ Blue Eyes and Dino capitalizing on their Italian-American “persona.” Indeed, leaning heavily into that cultural identity as just that: a persona, a caricature more than anything else. This included a live performance of a number called “Glad That We’re Italian,” featuring such embracements of go-to ethnic stereotypes as, “For us, each night’s a thriller/Chianti flowing free,” “Linguini sends me reeling” and “We’re two singin’ wops.” 

    Bennett, on the other hand, isn’t associated with any Italian songs (save for a very cringe version of “O Sole Mio”), parody-esque or otherwise. While Dean Martin’s “Volare” and “That’s Amore” would become backbones of his canon, Frank Sinatra would have “Come Back to Sorrento” (featuring an equally horrible pronunciation of Italian as Bennett’s “O Sole Mio”). But he appeared more interested in cultivating the mafia goon squad trope via the Rat Pack (plus being friends with Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana) than singing anything in Italian to make himself come across that way (maybe because when he sang in Italian, it had the opposite effect of making him seem as such). So entrenched in mafioso life was Sinatra, that Marilyn Monroe named the dog he gave her “Maf” in honor of that reality.

    Bennett was less inclined to go all in on being linked with the mob. Just because they gave him a leg-up on his career, didn’t mean he wanted to take Sinatra’s same approach by constantly canoodling with them (for, as it was said, Sinatra shared similar interests to many a made man: gambling, booze and women). Nor did he really want to canoodle that much with Frank, either. In fact, Bennett declined becoming a “member” of the Rat Pack, citing the hours they kept as plenty of reason to stay away. Preferring to admire Frank from a safe distance, perhaps. And sure, Bennett had his own “greasy lothario” era—particularly during his Vegas and drug addiction days of the late 60s and most of the 70s, but, for the most part, he was viewed as the quintessential “class act.” Especially after he was remarketed and repackaged by his oldest son, Danny, in 1979. This in the wake of reaching a nadir and almost overdosing on cocaine. 

    It was his wife, Sandra Grant—the woman he had an affair with while still married to his first wife, Patricia Beech—who found him and took him to the hospital. Brought back to life, so to speak, to live another forty-four years and recalibrate the narrative from turning into yet another tragic end for a musician whose depression got the better of them. In other words, the overlords reset the timeline for Bennett so he could perhaps better embody the model Italian-American. That is to say, not one so rooted in New York/New Jersey cliches of what is commonly perceived as being Italian-American. Ah, but then he had to go and work with Lady Gaga, a new butcher of Italian accents thanks to House of Gucci. All while passing it off as doing “method acting.” If “the method” was to make Italians speaking English sound mentally impaired. Which always seems to be the goal by those doing an “imitation” of the “real” Italian.

    This isn’t a coincidence, for part of the Italian stereotype is that they’ve got meat (or bullets) for brains. Such prejudices being part of what Bennett experienced during most of his early adult life, mentioning as much about his time in the military circa 1944, when the “sergeant was an old-fashioned Southern bigot, and he had it in for me from the start because I was an Italian from New York City.” Translation: not Italian at all. For it is an entirely different thing, being Italian-American. And Bennett appeared to understand what it meant to represent that slightly better over the years than his “Italian” contemporaries and subsequent collaborators alike (*cough cough* Lady Gaga), who would rather keep leaning into botched attempts at being “Italian” as opposed to just being what they are: American, with a dash of Italian zest that prompts them to dine at places like Manducatis (Bennett’s favored haunt for some fettuccine al eggplant) now and again. Which is a preferable choice to Olive Garden. In that (restaurant choice) regard, how much more of a model Italian-American can he be?

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Mind Your Business” Has the “Piece of Me” Tone That Keeps Britney Spears Firmly Associated With the 00s

    “Mind Your Business” Has the “Piece of Me” Tone That Keeps Britney Spears Firmly Associated With the 00s

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    For those who were worried that the 2000s might never come back authentically (instead having to settle for ersatz imitations like the makeup aesthetic on Euphoria), Britney Spears, the decade’s foremost representative, has decided to return with non-remake music (no shade at “Hold Me Closer”). Though, depending on who you ask, it’s some “fake version” of her still being controlled by members of her family and/or her new husband, Sam Asghari (or maybe even her gay bestie du moment, Cade Hudson). In short, that she hasn’t “returned” at all. Worse still, that the vocals on “Mind Your Business” are recycled from what Myah Marie, a singer who recorded many of the demos on 2013’s Britney Jean (which will.i.am executive produced), already did.

    And yes, 2013 was the last time Spears and will.i.am collaborated via “It Should Be Easy,” another EDM-centric ditty for Britney Jean that was released as the final single. However, “Big Fat Bass,” from 2011’s Femme Fatale, was not. Perhaps because both Brit and Will knew they would have something better to offer in their 2012 collaboration, “Scream & Shout” (from which “Mind Your Business” takes many sonic cues). A song wherein Britney repurposes (most of) her immortal 2007 line, “It’s Britney, bitch.” This hailing from “Gimme More,” the lead single on her fifth album, Blackout. The one her then-paparazzo boyfriend, Adnan Ghalib, says she wrote portions of on a Starbucks napkin (“iconic,” as Paris Hilton would remark). And it was “Piece of Me” that came after “Gimme More,” both songs exuding a tongue-in-cheek irreverence that showcased just how little Spears could bother to give a shit about her public image anymore. One that had been tarnished and tainted into oblivion by that point already anyway. After all, the head-shaving incident had occurred in February ‘07, along with her lip-syncing flop of a VMA performance in September, making “Piece of Me” an ideal track to unleash later that year in November. 

    It is the spirit and sound of “Mind Your Business” that echoes, once more, Spears’ “fuck you” defiance on “Piece of Me.” And yet, at the same time, it has to be said that the frozen in time quality of Spears’ sound on “Mind Your Business” makes one wonder if she is truly still “relevant” or simply catering to what longtime fans continue to want from her. We won’t use the term “cashing in,” for that’s a bit too crass in this case. Britney, after all, has been given the tacit sanction to cash in all she wants after being exploited for so many years. But, in all those years of being “handled,” forced to do things without being allowed to put in much creative input of her own, did she become trapped in the age she was effectively enslaved at (twenty-six) and in (2008)? Is that, in the end, what “Mind Your Business” embodies about Spears returning to the music business as a free agent? 

    It was Taylor Swift who once said, “There’s this thing people say about celebrities, that they’re frozen at the age they got famous.” In Spears’ scenario, not only does that hold true (based on her perpetually childlike nature), but it also applies to the age she got frozen at before losing her agency. The age she last recognized herself as, well herself. Not to mention one of the last instances where she had more control over the music she released (even if it wasn’t enough control to get Original Doll out there). So it’s only natural to want to return to that state (as natural as Britney wanting to revert to being twelve years old on her forty-first birthday). “Mind Your Business,” for precisely that reason, sounds like it could be straight outta 2007 far more than it sounds like “fresh content.” The same goes for the puzzling cover art, which makes some of the half-assed PicsArt offerings Lana Del Rey has been known to “create” look positively effort-laden. Where “Mind Your Business” is concerned, the image for the single is confirmed to feature a photo of Spears (or at least her face) from 2003 taken by Mark Liddell (from the same photoshoot Spears favors using an image from for her Instagram profile). Which, again, speaks to all the ways that everything about this single seems to want to freeze Spears in that decade. A freezing that appears to be of her own making. 

    And, as alluded to before, it might not technically even be “fresh content,” with the possibility that it was first “generated” in the Britney Jean era and “laid down” by Myah Marie. A woman, incidentally, who once uploaded a parody of “Piece of Me” called “Don’t Take the Kids From Me.” Removed at some point after it was initially posted in 2011, the purported lyrics doing a sendup of Spears’ original song include, “I was miss preteen wet dream when I was seventeen/I lip-sang and pretended to sing/Got breast implants and a wedding ring/Then I flashed all my privates, they put pictures in the magazines/Don’t take the kids from me, don’t take the kids from me.” Then there was also the verse, “I started hittin’ the bottle/Lost all the titles of role model/Hitched in Vegas, forgot it/Did all the things that I wanted/And with a kid in the car/Don’t need a seat belt for protection/Don’t take the kids from me.” For a parody that came out in 2011, it has all the crisp mean-spiritedness that was plaguing Spears in ‘07-‘08. A time that would have also prompted Spears to repeat, “Mind your B, mind your B, mind your B” (the “B” obviously playing on the first initial of her infamous name—so infamous, in fact, that she often gets the “icon treatment” of being referred to by the mononym of “Britney”). 

    To that point, as Spears enters a new decade as a liberated woman, “Mind Your Business” feels decidedly “old hat” (though she did have some fire flat caps and fedoras in the 00s). By the same token, everything about it is “giving the people what they want”: 2000s hauntology. Although no one really wants something truly “new” from Spears, her uncanny ability to deliver the same themes and sounds from the 00s doesn’t quite work as well within the context of now, an era when, sure, she’s still occasionally “stalked” by paparazzi, but nowhere near the swarming level that was happening to her in 2007. To boot, those magazines that could once make so much coin off tracking her movements are no longer selling the way they used to. And websites like TMZ and Perez Hilton certainly have nothing close to their 00s-level influence. So, who then, is “Mind Your Business” really speaking to? Other than a need to dust off the time period in which Spears can last recall herself at her “best.” Or maybe she’s redirecting some of her ire toward the comments section (which she’s turned off at this point), where trolls abound in innovatively hateful ways. 

    And so it is that “Piece of Me” lyrics like, “Don’t matter if I step on the scene/Or sneak away to the Philippines/They still gon’ put pictures of my derrière in the magazine/You want a piece of me?/You want a piece of me” transmogrify into “Mind Your Business” lyrics like, “Uptown, downtown, everywhere I turn around/Hollywood, London, snap-snap is the sound/Paparazzi shot me, I am the economy [the “Britney economy” being the name of the entire career that cropped up out of documenting her in the aughts]/Follow me, follow me, follow me/Follow, follow me.” That last line having new meaning in the social media epoch. 

    This perpetual feeling of being hunted (like Diana) might still hold true for Spears in the form of the conspiracy theories surrounding her (even more so in the wake of the conservatorship) that make people obsessed with knowing her “real” location (or why she hasn’t gone anywhere at all). But it’s no longer as resonant as it was in the mid-aughts when she could scarcely walk down the street without risking some version of an assault. Indeed, it was her inability to do so that eventually led to the first major anti-paparazzi law getting passed after they ambushed her while she was being escorted by ambulance to the hospital in 2008. 

    Of course, a song like “Mind Your Business” exemplifies the great dichotomy of fame. Of how, on the one hand, a celebrity craves the kind of attention that secures them millions (or even billions of dollars), yet on the other, they just want to be treated like a “regular person.” A.k.a. have the financial/influence-related benefits of fame, along with anonymity and privacy in their “off” hours. Alas, being famous is a 24/7 occupation (but at least the pay grade somewhat matches that grueling schedule more accordingly than it does for others). 

    Britney once likened her life to a “Circus” and having all eyes on her in the center of the ring. To some extent, that’s made her world-weary. To another, it’s part of the “I’m paid attention to, therefore I am” mentality that many celebrities can’t ever shake once they find their fame. And, talking of circuses, the intro to “Mind Your Business” has a very circus-y, zany type of sound—with a sinister undertone that the Joker could probably get on board with. For that’s what belies the “glitz” and “glamor” of fame: a seedy, nightmarish underbelly. It then concludes with a choir-y repetition of “mind your B.” This after the final verse delivered by Spears that somewhat unfortunately echoes another 00s song, Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Namely, when Spears, likely referring to her current coterie of canines, warns, “If they don’t get up out my face, then send the dogs out (woof)/Five seconds and then the dogs come out (woof)/You know what happens when the dogs come out/None of your business-ness.” The playful nonsensicality of it harkens back to Spears’ tone on “Work Bitch” (among the few standout tracks from Britney Jean) when she says, “I bring the treble, don’t mean to trouble ya/I make it bubble up, call me the bubbler/I am the bad bitch, the bitch that you’re lovin’ up.”

    Elsewhere, it’s not as though will.i.am’s lyrics do much to update the sound of the song either, with Big Brother-y nods like, “They watchin’ me, they watchin’ ya/They got eyes up in the sky/So pose for that camera” channeling Snoop Dogg and Justin Timberlake’s 2005 single, “Signs,” on which the former raps, “Now you stepping wit a G, from Los Angeles/Where the helicopters got cameras/Just to get a glimpse of our Chucks/And our khakis and our bouncer cars.” Much as they tried to get a glimpse of Britney doing just about anything banal (usually leaving Starbucks)…circa the 00s.

    In the present, Spears still refers to unflattering paparazzi photos she sees of herself (though it’s hard to say where), as though despising, more than anything, not being able to sustain the image she has of herself as that twenty-two-year-old from 2003 (hence, the picture chosen for the “Mind Your Business” cover art). Madonna, too, has a similar problem, but in contrast to Britney’s idol, there seems, here, to be a lack of any attempt at reinvention (both image-wise and in terms of experimenting with a different sound), so much as a leaning further into the decade that made her an icon in the first place. Because maybe, in the end, the early and mid-aughts are the last time she can remember, like so many of us, feeling any sense of “normalcy.” For, as skewed as her (and humanity’s) “normal” was back then, it’s undoubtedly even more oblique now. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Blow Up the Patriarchy, Or: The Barbenheimer Experience

    Blow Up the Patriarchy, Or: The Barbenheimer Experience

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    Perhaps what they don’t warn you about with regard to “the Barbenheimer experience” is just how jarring it actually is. Certainly, that’s the entire “point” of pairing these two films together, the reason the internet has gone apeshit: because they’re so “divergent.” In fact, the phenomenon has proven to be such an excitement to people that they’ve gone “through the archives” to find similar instances of unlikely movie pairings released the same week. Such examples include Jumanji and Heat, The Matrix and 10 Things I Hate About You and The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! It’s really only the latter example (complete with also featuring a Christopher Nolan movie) that comes vaguely close to capturing the sort of genre/color palette dichotomy that Barbie and Oppenheimer do. But, on a deeper level than that, watching Oppenheimer the same day or week serves as an even more blatant method for underscoring the horrifying patriarchal system that Barbie does. 

    In Oppenheimer’s case, of course, it’s unintentional. Because never was patriarchy in America at its strongest and most accepted than in the mid-twentieth century. Nor could Nolan have planned for a movie about garden-variety male toxicity to have coincided so seamlessly with an actual moviegoing trend/phenomenon. The pairing of these two films fundamentally speaking to how patriarchy destroys lives in far more literal ways than figurative ones. While Barbie (Margot Robbie) at least gets to experience life as it should be under matriarchy in Barbie Land, maybe it’s almost worse to know what that sense of peace and freedom is like only to be forced to enter Real World territory, where males rule with an iron/button-pushing (a bomb allusion) fist. 

    Upon seeing how things are done in Real World, Ken (Ryan Gosling) decides he can no longer be subjected to the “tyranny” of matriarchal dominance. Of being unable to force a Barbie to do anything he wants them to (i.e., return his affection), least of all the specific one he’s pining over. Because, in Barbie Land, men a.k.a. Kens are just background. In J. Robert Oppenheimer’s (Cillian Murphy) world, it’s women who are very much peripheral, serving only as vague sexual impressions. Yet there’s never any issue with making a woman “his.” Except his on-again, off-again paramour, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). Unfortunately for Oppenheimer, she’s the type of “Berkeley free spirit” who can never seem to be pinned down. Oppenheimer’s eventual wife, Katherine (Emily Blunt), on the other hand, is only too eager to take a fourth husband in “Oppi.” 

    And yet, for as important as these women are in Oppenheimer’s life (not to mention being the only sign of women anywhere within this filmic landscape), they’re really just cursory and occasional “presences” that only interrupt the “real” work he’s doing. The truly “significant” aspect of his life. Which becomes helping male politicians destroy the world in the name of war. With Oppenheimer himself growing (like a mushroom cloud) so consumed and titillated by the resources (financial or otherwise) the government provides him with in the name of scientific research, he loses sight of the monster he’s actually creating. Perhaps as Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlaman) once did as well. Not knowing that the woman she unleashed onto the world—the one quite literally made to show girls that they could be anything—only served to further highlight all the things they would never be, both body-wise and career-wise. Therefore, Handler ended up actually accenting a more palpable and depressing divide between reality and what should be…as opposed to conjuring a beacon of hope and feminism in Barbie. And yes, it bears noting that, despite all her evolutions, Mattel has never seen fit to release a “Body Positivity” Barbie. Maybe because they know just how hollow that would come across at this juncture. Though false intentions never stopped a capitalist from trying to make a fast buck. In short, to capitalize. 

    Obviously, Handler and Oppenheimer are by no means comparable for what they created—though each one did offer up, in some sense, a kind of Frankenstein. Gerwig appears to know that only too well by making Handler a prominent character in Barbie. A conceit that might seem a bit out of left field to some, but is actually entirely appropriate considering she was the brainchild behind Mattel’s best-selling and most iconic toy. And it’s cruelly ironic that Handler’s “ghost” should be left to haunt the seventeenth floor of corporate headquarters while the suits with no insight into women benefit from her invention. For yes, she was eventually forced to resign from Mattel in 1974 after the taxman cracked down on her for false financial reporting (something Gerwig refers to with a joke that Ruth herself makes in the movie).

    Difficulty getting along with the government appears to be a common characteristic in those who simply want to create. For Oppenheimer, too, was viewed with malice and contempt by the very political machine that was dependent upon him for developing an atomic weapon. One that turned out, in the end, to be rather needless as Japan would have surely surrendered without it. But such is the nature of patriarchy, with every man “in charge” needing to prove that his power is authoritative and incontrovertible by swinging his dick around while lives hang in the balance. 

    Oppenheimer makes that disgustingly clear when Henry L. Stimson (James Remar), the Secretary of War at the time, decides they shouldn’t bomb Kyoto because he and his wife honeymooned there and it’s a “lovely” place that has cultural value not just to him, but the Japanese. In other words, fuck those arbitrary shitholes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To see a scene like this play out is indicative of just how damaging patriarchy is, for it is a system run by a gender that thrives on violence, ego and heartless decision-making. A gender that proves, ultimately, gender is no illusion; for this particular one feeds on destruction, whereas the female one is founded metaphorically and literally on creation. The great yin and yang endeavors of each type of being. 

    So yes, more than merely a means to appreciate the contrasting cinematography styles of Hoyte van Hoytema and Rodrigo Prieto, the Barbenheimer experience does feel somehow essential. Like it shouldn’t get reduced to being categorized as “frivolous pandering to internet tastemaking,” but rather, seen as a brutal and unique way to watch how patriarchy upends male and female lives alike on a daily basis. All because someone wanted to prove he has clout and “intelligence.” Though the dumbest thing of all is to assume that one has any significance whatsoever in the grand scheme. 

    Especially a grand scheme that might now invariably include going “kabluey” because a man wanted to show off the prowess of his mind knowing full well that said result would be used for evil. Indeed, quoting from a Hindu scripture, Oppenheimer would say of his creation, “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” In some sense, Barbie destroyed worlds as well. Bringing “fire” to the “cavewomen” who were still stuck playing with (read: playing at mothering) baby dolls throughout their childhood. Accordingly, this is the very scene Greta Gerwig rightly chooses to commence Barbie with. And would that playing with/learning to emulate a “slutty” doll was the most affronting and harmful thing a man (/man-boy) ever did. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • In Barbie, As In Life, Patriarchy Is the Insidious Force Turning Women’s Lives Upside Down

    In Barbie, As In Life, Patriarchy Is the Insidious Force Turning Women’s Lives Upside Down

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    It’s among the few mononyms that invoke an immediate visceral reaction—whether reverent or contemptuous—within people. God. Madonna. Barbie. And, like the aforementioned Italian-American pop star, Barbie, too, is a baby boomer, “born” (just a year after Madonna) in 1959—and yet another girl who would change “the game” for all of womankind irrevocably. And that game, of course, is the one called Patriarchy. The system that’s set up to make sure pretty much everyone without a (congenital) white dick will fail. Or at least have a much more arduous time succeeding. And for those who say that’s just “a copout” “now,” one need only refer to a pointed line in Barbie from a white male Mattel employee: “We’re still doing [patriarchy], we just hide it better now.”

    This admission echoes something Seymour (Steve Buscemi) from Ghost World tells Enid (Thora Birch): “I suppose things are better now, but…I don’t know, it’s complicated. People still hate each other…but they just know how to hide it better.” In Barbie Land, no one hates anyone. Except maybe Ken (Ryan Gosling). The “man” who becomes the surprising (yet somehow totally expected) antagonist as the narrative of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s script goes on. Because, as it is for many an incel, a latent resentment toward a woman who won’t “put out” starts to brew and bubble to the surface within Ken as he not only competes with the other multi-ethnic Kens for Barbie’s attention, but also deals with the brutal realization that Barbie is never going to 1) let him stay the night at her Dreamhouse or 2) look at him as anything other than ultimately platonic background to her Technicolor dream life. 

    As for the Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) he’s after, she’s starting to feel a few cracks in the pristine veneers of her world. It starts with unwanted thoughts of death as she interrupts her usual nightly dance party with the question no one wants to hear, “Do you guys ever think about dying?” When the reaction results in deafening silence and horrified glances, Barbie saves the mood by rephrasing it as, “I’m dying to dance!” Even on those pointed-toe feet of hers. Or at least, they were pointed—until the thoughts of death came. That turns out to be the harbinger for cold showers, burnt plastic toast, imaginary milk that’s expired and, yes, flat feet. 

    Sharing this news with the other Barbies, they not only shriek in disgust, but also inform her that she’s going to have to see “Weird Barbie” (Kate McKinnon) about this. Weird Barbie is the only one who knows how to fix “weird” things, after all. She’s sort of the Shakespearean answer to the Weird Sisters in Macbeth like that. And also the answer to Barbie’s dose of a The Matrix allusion—except rather than offering her a blue pill, red pill scenario, Weird Barbie offers her a high heel, Birkenstock scenario. The latter, obviously, meant to represent knowing the truth about the Real World—where nothing is nearly as effortlessly glamorous or pretty as it is in Barbie Land. 

    Although Barbie picks the high heel—stay in Barbie Land and know nothing of the Real World—unfortunately, she’s told that the shoes were only meant as a ceremonial way for Weird Barbie to present her with the “illusion” of choice. But actually, she doesn’t really have one if she wants to get her pointed feet back and remove the blatant cellulite that’s started to form on her thighs. Weird Barbie also imparts her with the knowledge that, to “restore order” (a.k.a. “be perfect” again), she must find the sad girl who’s been “playing with her” (“We’re all being played with,” Weird Barbie adds) and reconnect so that the sadness goes away and stops infecting Barbie’s body and mind. 

    “Leaving Oz,” as it were, is no easy feat though. Far more difficult than simply “following the yellow brick road,” let’s put it that way. And yet, there’s no challenge Barbie can’t surmount—even when she’s no longer feeling quite as powerful in her “lusterless” state. “Lusterless,” in this case, being a lot like what Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) in Jennifer’s Body describes as, “My skin is breaking out, and my hair is dull and lifeless. God. It’s like I’m one of the normal girls.” And Barbie was never meant to be “normal.” Even if that’s what “normal” girls have been indoctrinated to believe is normal. She’s supposed to be extraordinary (effortlessly so), precisely because Barbie is Woman. Everything to everyone, everything all the time. And it is in this spirit of how the doll is meant to represent “women” that sets off Gloria (America Ferrera), an illustrator who works at Mattel and rescues B from the execs who want to literally put her back in a box, on a tirade not unlike what Camille Rainville explored with her “Be A Lady They Said” text. 

    A text that, just as Gloria’s speech does, expounds on all the ways in which women are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. “Be sexy, but not too sexy…” or, to use a portion from Rainville’s statement on how women can never live up to the impossible and conflicting standards (let alone the standards of a “Barbie body”) they’re held to by a merciless patriarchal society: “Be a lady they said. Don’t be too fat. Don’t be too thin. Eat up. Slim down. Stop eating so much. Order a salad. Don’t eat carbs. Skip dessert. Go on a diet. God, you look like a skeleton. Why don’t you just eat? You look emaciated. You look sick. Men like women with some meat on their bones. Be a size zero. Be a double zero. Be nothing. Be less than nothing.” Be whatever he wants you to be at any given moment. And yet, because Barbie Land is actually that rare thing—a matriarchy—the Kens who exist within it have never known anything like what the men of the Real World get to “enjoy” (if subjugating is what you’re into): total power and control. When Ken sees how Real World “functions” upon crashing Barbie’s “Restore Barbie Body” mission, he can hardly believe his eyes and ears. That, all this time, he could have been using his “Kenergy” to “make” Barbie his. 

    The thing he doesn’t account for—as so many men do not—is that no one can really “make” a woman do anything she doesn’t want to (though, not to be crass, the Taliban tries). Not when her heart isn’t really in something. And as we’ve seen happen in many a fairytale/Disney movie, when a woman is figuratively and/or literally locked up against her will (à la Rapunzel or Belle in Beauty and the Beast) by a man who didn’t get the message (she’s not interested), she’ll do whatever it takes to set herself free. And it is Gloria’s speech about the impossible nature of what it is to Be A Woman in Real World that becomes a means to deprogram the Barbies who have fallen prey to Ken’s “message of patriarchy.” With Stereotypical Barbie being the only Barb immune to the rhetoric because she had already been exposed to it in Real World, Gloria compares the way in which the other Barbies become so susceptible to this “plague” to how indigenous people fell prey to smallpox in the 1600s because they hadn’t experienced it before. Luckily, her speech is the vaccine, allowing Barbie and Weird Barbie (along with some questionably named discontinued models) to pluck the deprogrammed ones, Barbie by Barbie, and reinstate Barbie Land to its true status quo (though Stereotypical Barbie herself will never be the same again).

    Of course, the work of having to “teach” Real World men that they can’t always get what they want—women included—is something that Gerwig clearly takes very seriously. After all, she just had a second son with Barbie co-writer/frequent collaborator Noah Baumbach. She must indeed feel the weight of that—the responsibility all mothers have to raise sons who aren’t misogynistic pricks. And yet, it is the mother-daughter relationship that Gerwig addressed with such heartrending efficacy in Lady Bird that appears here again, too. Not just between Gloria and her anti-Barbie tween, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), but the one between all mothers and daughters, as Barbie witnesses the joy and pain of motherhood when Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), the creator of Barbie and a key talisman from earlier in the film, allows her the chance to feel like a human. Like a woman. And yes, some women “just” want to be ordinary. “Just” want to have children. “Just” want to be, full-stop. They don’t need the additional pressures of Physicist Barbie or Robotics Engineer Barbie. Maybe, as Gloria suggests with a new pitch to Mattel’s CEO (Will Ferrell), it’s “enough” (not to be confused with Kenough) to “just” be Ordinary Barbie. In short, being a woman “allowed” the same luxury as men—which is to be merely “mediocre” without risking condemnation. 

    With Barbie, one hopes the very clear message will get across to younger generations of men and women, who can both understand not only the damage patriarchy does, but also the fact that it’s not always an end all, be all “goal” to secure a romantic partner just because that’s what you’ve been told you “should” do. Alas, will Barbie, in the end, be just another “thing” patriarchal-run industries and governments can point to and say, “See, we let women ‘do’ things all the time” simply because they’ve become more comfortable with “letting” women “talk their shit” as a clever means to ultimately still keep them “in check”? That, one supposes, is something that only time and subsequent generations will tell (if they live long enough in this increasingly hostile environment to do so).

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Preeminent Question Presented By No Hard Feelings: “Doesn’t Anyone FUCK Anymore?!”

    The Preeminent Question Presented By No Hard Feelings: “Doesn’t Anyone FUCK Anymore?!”

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    Perhaps if there is one key aim of No Hard Feelings (apart from being 2023’s answer to a “sex” comedy), it’s to highlight the flaccidity of a generation. While millennials endured their fair share of being called “snowflakes,” that derisive epithet has shifted squarely onto the shoulders of Gen Z—tenfold. Particularly as their “kind” is the first to be known for having less sex than their forebears. Not so coincidentally, the documented decline in mental health seems to have coincided with the documented decline in an interest in sex. Based on what we see in Gene Stupnitsky’s latest film, it’s clear Gen Z’s sanity and self-confidence could be greatly boosted if they seemed to better understand what Alex Comfort would call the joy of sex.

    Alas, for Percy Becker (Andrew Barth Feldman), that understanding is a long way off. “Luckily,” there to nudge it along are what the movie’s summary bills as his “helicopter parents,” Laird (Matthew Broderick) and Allison (Laura Benanti). Though, if we’re venturing out of millennial territory, the more appropriate term for what Gen Z has are lawnmower parents. A breed that, although similar to the hovering-over-every-action helicopter parents, actually goes so far as to mow down every obstacle in their children’s way. Which has been the case for Percy his entire life. This being the driving force behind why they post a Craigslist ad (again, a very millennial medium) seeking a girl in her early to mid-twenties to “date” their son—the running joke of a euphemism that the audience is meant to easily interpret as “fuck.” In other words, they want someone to “date the shit out of” their son so that he’ll finally come out of his shell. The little sexually awkward hermit crab that he is.

    At the same time, Maddie Barker’s (Jennifer Lawrence) circumstances have aligned to become the lone “girl” who might take the ad seriously/be up for what it requires (that is to say, actually “opening Percy up”). For, as the movie commences with one of her many exes pulling up to her house in Montauk (because yes, this is the first real “Montauk movie”—unless one counts Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), it’s apparent that things are financially dire. Confirmed by that ex, Gary (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), also happening to be a tow truck driver who has been tasked with repossessing her car.

    Freaking out about losing a key source of her additional income (being an Uber driver does, to be sure, require a car), Maddie proceeds to funnel her rage toward the “summer people” that have been ruining Montauk for true locals for decades. And if you were wondering how she herself got her cush abode, it belonged to her mother…who got it, in turn, as a form of “hush property” from Maddie’s absentee father. A man who had an affair with Maddie’s mother while keeping his “real family” in the city. This is the type of complicated quagmire a cocooned, affluent Gen Zer like Percy could never understand. And yet, Maddie goes into the job under the misguided notion that she can treat a member of Gen Z anything close to how she would a millennial. Because, though the years that separate the generations aren’t that many, the divide is vast.

    Take, for instance, Maddie’s initial approach to Percy, instructed by his parents to manufacture a “meet cute” with him at the animal shelter where he volunteers. Percy conveniently happens to be holding a wiener dog in his arms so that Maddie can deliver the solid-gold line, “Can I touch your wiener?” Percy is more frazzled than aroused by Maddie’s sexed-up appearance and subtle-as-a-car-crash flirting techniques. And that feeling only intensifies when, in his mind, it seems as though Maddie is trying to kidnap him when she offers to give him a ride home.

    Ending up at her house instead, Percy sprays her in the face with pepper spray as she demands, “Why couldn’t you have used your rape whistle instead?” “Why would I have a rape whistle?” he replies. She tells him that the better question is, why would he have mace? The answer, needless to say, is that this lily-livered generation is so afraid of their own shadow, so riddled with the anxieties of potential danger lurking everywhere that of course they wouldn’t leave the house unarmed. If they leave the house at all. Percy certainly never seems to. Until Maddie comes along. Because, quelle surprise, in spite of the mace snafu, Percy is coerced into asking her on a date.

    When Maddie arranges for him to meet her at the bar she usually frequents, it results in not only running into yet another one of her “exes” (i.e., flings), but a discussion about what Hall and Oates’ “Maneater” is actually saying. All Percy knows is, the lyrical content terrified him as a child. While he took the description more literally to mean some kind of monster only comes out at night, Maddie breaks it to him that, no, that’s not what the song is about. Though, to be fair, it’s not really about a sexually appetitive woman either, with John Oates explaining that it’s actually about “NYC in the 80s. It’s about greed, avarice, and spoiled riches. But we have it in the setting of a girl because it’s more relatable. It’s something that people can understand.” Unless they’re Percy or any other Gen Z male, who doesn’t know the first thing about how to “activate” a woman (that said, in a pre-Gen Z era of movies, Percy probably would have just been written off as gay as opposed to “emotionally delicate”).

    Nonetheless, Maddie performs every cliché trick in the book to entice him, still not yet registering that he needs to be “dealt with” in a manner that speaks his own sexually repressed language. Before Maddie realizes that, she wastes her time seducing him with the millennial classic known as Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” complete with booty-popping that ultimately falls on blind eyes as he comments on how she feels a little heavy on his legs. Although one would think their total lack of sexual chemistry might have put Percy off of Maddie by now (whereas Maddie has no choice but to stay the course if she wants her vehicular compensation), the reality is, she’s the form of connection he’s been craving. Isolating himself from his peers after transferring to a new school in the wake of a nasty rumor about how he has sex with his parents (this snowballing from the fact that he still slept in the same room as them now and again), Percy has deliberately kept his distance from others. Chosen to blend in to avoid being noticed, therefore perceived and judged at all.

    Despite Maddie and Percy’s generational divide, this is one thing they can easily relate to with each other: putting up walls to keep anyone from getting too close. Granted, Maddie at least has an age-appropriate best friend named Sarah (Natalie Morales), who comes as a set with her boyfriend/soon-to-be father of her child, Jim (Scott MacArthur). In fact, they’re the ones who urged her to respond to the Craigslist ad in the first place. What with the payment just so happening to be the car replacement she needs to keep working her side hustle (heaven forbid the payment could be actual, real money; rich people, after all, only keep their wealth by not sharing it in any profound way).

    By the end of that first date, though, Maddie is wishing she never bothered as she’s forced to take matters into her own hands when a group of teenagers steal their clothes from the beach (somehow, she had managed to convince Percy to go skinny dipping with her). Because, obviously, Percy isn’t going to do a thing to stop them—a point she calls out when he gets “spooked” by how she attacked them while completely naked (this patently being part of a CGI wonder). Berating him for being incapable of taking action or making decisions for himself without the presumed sanction of an “adult” (she reminds him that he’s one, too), she finally tells him that she feels sorry for him. As it is easy to do for a generation that grew up so fundamentally sheltered despite being exposed to just about every depraved thing imaginable through the lens of a screen (read: the internet).

    And part of that pity flares up again toward the end of the movie’s second act, as Maddie goes from room to room at a rich person’s house party in search of Percy, seeing that, in each one, the youths are doing nothing more than frittering the time away on their phones or with a VR headset. So frustrated by the sight of such flaccidity (which has been compounded by her weeks spent with Percy), she finally cries out, “Doesn’t anyone fuck anymore?” The answer clearly being a resounding no. Not even in a sex comedy. For, expectedly, when Maddie and Percy finally do “consummate” their relationship, the visual result is even more lackluster than one would expect.

    Regardless, No Hard Feelings has been celebrated as an “old-school raunch fest with plenty of laughs.” Yet it’s apparent that the movie isn’t exactly that at all. For it knows it can’t dare to go in the same territory as erstwhile benchmarks of previous raunch comedies like, say, Porky’s. Or even Weird Science and Revenge of the Nerds. All of which focus on male teens at a time when they weren’t all so, well, incel-esque.

    As a member of Gen X, Stupnitsky (who cowrote the script with John Phillips) perhaps not only possesses a different layer of objectivity regarding the dynamic between millennials and Gen Zers who are even less physically and emotionally equipped than the former, but also certainly understands the finer points of malaise and suffering (being Ukrainian helps with that, too). All while managing to incorporate sex (or the “suggestion” of it) into that cocktail of growing pains misery. Because sex is what helps keep most people from going completely insane. That is, most people who aren’t part of Gen Z. But the lack of intense interest in it on their part is built into the title—having no hard feelings (a.k.a. erections) because it’s difficult to do that when all feelings whatsoever are numbed out to begin with.

    Does No Hard Feelings go to the same lengths of raunch in getting that message across as Fast Times at Ridgemont High or There’s Something About Mary, or even Superbad? No. But such are the fragile Gen Z-geared times we live in.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “El Flow No Está a la Venta”: Karol G’s “S91”

    “El Flow No Está a la Venta”: Karol G’s “S91”

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    Having previously worked with Pedro Artola on videos like “Cairo” and “Provenza,” Karol G reteams with the director to bring us the surreal stylings of the “S91” video. Starting from the image of Karol G sitting in the desert next to a cross formed by speakers in lieu of pinewood, it’s clear that the singer wants to establish a religious motif from the outset. And considering that the title of the song is a reference to “Psalm 91,” that should come as no surprise.

    Sporting pink hair (perhaps a residual look from her “Watati” video for the Barbie Soundtrack) as she stares with a knowing glance into the camera, things are serene enough until the tension starts to mount as a crowd of people in the desert begin to approach her. They then abruptly run toward her in a manner that suggests a threat is at play, until we see another scene of an animated panther also about to pounce on her…or so we’re led to believe. In the next moment, the crowd has gone from ostensibly chasing her down to following right behind her as she leads the pack—even if being hotly pursued by it. That said, the people behind her suddenly turn into animated wolves that still happen to be out for Karol G’s blood.

    As she approaches the aforementioned panther—her apparent protector/“guardian angel”—it launches into attack mode against the lead wolf, both of them jumping into the air to give their best shot at taking the other down. And, just when you think the wolf might have the upper hand in the fight, the panther bitch slaps him across the cheek, leading us instantly to the next scene, wherein Karol G reminds us it’s always Bichota Season, with that phrase displayed on the black car she’s now driving. Gripping the wheel tightly, Karol G proceeds to drag race against the yellow car next to her. As the two go mano a mano in the desert, a random smattering of onlookers (including one tit flasher) cheers her on. But really, there’s no need. For, soon after starting the race, Karol G is coasting easily. So easily, in fact, that she’s riding on top of her car, straight chillin’ as she makes her way through the desert without a care in the world. A look that makes sense when taking into account how “S91” is a rumination on how she’s cut out the proverbial haters from her life. As such, Karol G assures, “I no longer have people who envy me/What I have is apprentices.” A polite word, perhaps, for “minions.” But surely Karol G is less diabolical than Blair Waldorf, so we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt on the kindness of a word like “apprentice” (which needed to be “reappropriated” from Donald Trump anyway).

    In the next scenario, Karol G is floating peacefully in a body of water, a close-up on her tattoo reading, “HOPE.” Something she might want to hold on to as animated sharks circle her in the water. All while she remains tranquilly in her lifebuoy at the center. For, as she’s already noted of the “sharks” out there thirsting for her blood, “From afar you can see that they want to be like me, I already saw them/But the flow is not for sale I’m sorry, but the flow is not for sale.” Would that Britney Spears told a few people that before it was too late. And in the concluding moment to this scene, a massive shark just barely visible beneath her suddenly shows not only the extent of its largeness, but how its entire mouth might just be about to swallow her whole.

    Before we can see if it actually does, Artola cuts to Karol G safely walking through a field before a barrage of religious imagery inside a church appears to emphasize the spiritual overtones of a song that speaks to how Karol G has reached a point in her life where she feels protected by some sort of “higher power.” Maybe that’s “arrogance,” or maybe it’s simply what the L.A. girls call “manifesting”—finding the confidence one needs to battle outside malignant forces by using “the strength within” (or “the voice within,” as Christina Aguilera would call it).

    Karol G’s confidence and self-assurance on this single ties into the psalm she refers to in the title via the lyrics, “Pues mil caerán a tu derecha, y diez mil a tu izquierda, pero a ti nada te pasará.” A.k.a.: “For a thousand shall fall at thy right hand, and ten thousand at thy left, but nothing shall befall thee.” In other words, she knows how to stay calm amid the noise and the flaccid attempts at “taking her down.” After all, how can any girl be taken down once she’s collaborated with Shakira? The concluding part of that psalm (“Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked”) alludes to how all one needs to do is sit back and let “karma” do its job.

    That’s the tip Karol G seems to be on as she makes the sign of the cross inside the church before another cut takes us to Paris at nighttime, where Karol G lets her inner basic bitch run wild as she poses and cavorts in front of the sparkling Eiffel Tower as though possessed by a jubilance she can’t control. For that’s what it is to give no credence to negativity or one’s detractors.

    After already releasing the optimistically titled album Mañana Será Bonito earlier this year, a title card at the end of the video promises “Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season) Coming Soon” before one last scene of Karol G relaxing with the protective animated panther we saw earlier in the narrative. Whether that means Karol G is releasing some kind of deluxe edition of the record (à la Tove Lo with Dirt Femme) is left up to the viewer. But, either way, it’s clear that Karol G is not about suffering fools or letting her happiness be affected by others any longer.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Asteroid City: Wes Anderson’s “Sci-Fi” Movie Is About A Collective and Resigned Sense of Doom More Than It Is 50s Americana

    Asteroid City: Wes Anderson’s “Sci-Fi” Movie Is About A Collective and Resigned Sense of Doom More Than It Is 50s Americana

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    A palpable shift has occurred in Wes Anderson’s style and tone since the release of 2021’s The French Dispatch. One doesn’t want to use a cliché like “mature” to describe what’s been happening since that perceptible tonal pivot in his filmography, so perhaps the better way to “define” what’s happening to Anderson and his storytelling is that it’s gotten, as Cher Horowitz would note, “Way existential.” Not to say there wasn’t that element to some degree in previous films, but now, it’s amplified—ratcheted up to a maximum that was never there before. Some might proffer it’s because Anderson has transitioned to a new era of his life, therefore possesses a greater concern with mortality; others could posit that our world and society has become so fragile in the years since 2020, that even privileged white men have been rattled by it enough to let it color their work. Whatever the case, the increased focus on mortality and “the meaning of life” in Anderson’s oeuvre is no surprise considering one of his greatest directorial influences is Woody Allen. Yes, he might be cancelled, but that doesn’t change the effect he’s had on Anderson.

    Of course, Anderson has managed to take the puerility of Allen’s lead characters and render them “quirky,” “oddball” and “postmodern” instead. What’s more, Anderson has the “marketing sense” not to make his characters come across as “too Jewy,” lest it “scandalize” the often white bread audiences he tends to attract. Some might argue that Asteroid City is his whitest offering yet—which is really saying something. And yes, like Allen, Anderson has begun to favor the “screenwriting technique” of setting his movies in the past, so as not to have to deal with the “vexing” and “unpleasant” complications of trying to address post-woke culture in his casting and narrative decisions. Defenders of Anderson would bite back by remarking that the director creates alternate worlds in general, and should be left to do his own thing without being subjected to the “moral” and “ethical” issues presented by “modern filmmaking requirements.” For the most part, that’s remained the case, even as occasional hemming-and-hawing about his “movies so white” shtick crops up when he releases a new film. But to those who will follow Anderson anywhere, the trip to Asteroid City does prove to be worth it. If for no other reason than to show us the evolution of an auteur when he’s left alone, permitted to be creative without letting the outside voices and noise fuck with his head.

    In many regards, the “town” (or rather, desert patch with a population of eighty-seven) is a representation of the same bubble Anderson exists in whenever he writes and directs something. To the point of writing, Anderson returns to the meta exploration of what it means to create on the page (as he did for The French Dispatch), anchored by the playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton). Although he’s not one of the more heavily featured characters, without him, none of the characters we’re seeing perform a televised production of Asteroid City would exist. If that sounds too meta already, it probably is. With the host (Bryan Cranston) of an anthology TV series serving as our guide, the movie commences in black and white as he stares into the camera and proceeds to do his best impersonation of Rod Serling at the beginning of The Twilight Zone. Indeed, it’s clear Anderson wants to allude to these types of TV anthology series that were so popular in the post-war Golden Age of Television. And even on the radio, as Orson Welles showcased in 1938, with his adaptation of The War of the Worlds. A broadcast that caused many listeners to panic about an alien invasion, unaware that it wasn’t real. In fact, Cranston as the host is sure to forewarn his viewers, “Asteroid City does not exist. It is an imaginary drama created expressly for this broadcast.” That warning comes with good reason, for people in the 50s were easily susceptible to being bamboozled by whatever was presented to them on the then-new medium of TV. Because, “If it’s on TV, it must be true.” And the last thing anyone wanted to believe—then as much as now—is that there could be life on other planets. Sure, it sounds “neato” in theory, but, in reality, Earthlings are major narcissists who want to remain the lone “stars” of the interplanetary show.

    Set in September of 1955, Asteroid City centers its narrative on a Junior Stargazer convention, where five students will be honored for their excellence in astronomy and astronomy-related innovations. Among those five are Woodrow (Jake Ryan), Shelly (Sophia Lillis), Ricky (Ethan Josh Lee), Dinah (Grace Edwards) and Clifford (Aristou Meehan). It’s Woodrow who arrives to town first, courtesy of his war photographer father, Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman). Although they’ve arrived to their destination, Augie still has to take the broken-down car to the mechanic (Matt Dillon). After much fanfare and tinkering, The Mechanic concludes that the car is kaput. Augie decides to phone his father-in-law, Stanley Zak (Tom Hanks), to come pick up Woodrow and Augie’s three daughters, Andromeda (Ella Faris), Pandora (Gracie Faris) and Cassiopeia (Willan Faris). Stanley doesn’t immediately agree, instead opting to remind Augie that he was never good enough for his daughter (played briefly, in a way, by Margot Robbie) and that he ought to tell his children that their mother died. Three weeks ago, to be exact. But withholding this information is just one of many ways in which Augie parades his emotional stuntedness. Something that ultimately enchants Hollywood actress Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson), who also happens to be the mother of another Junior Stargazer, Dinah.

    All the while, the vibrant, almost fake-looking set seems there solely to reiterate that all vibrancy is belied by something darker beneath it. That was never truer than in postwar America. And talking of vibrant cinematography and explosions, if Barbie’s color palette had a baby with Oppenheimer’s explosive content, you’d get Asteroid City (which, again, features Margot “Barbie” Robbie herself). With regard to explosions, it bears noting that the intro to the movie includes a train plugging along, bound for Asteroid City carrying all manner of bounty: avocados, pecans and, oh yes, a ten-megaton nuclear warhead with the disclaimer: “Caution: DO NOT DETONATE without Presidential Approval.” So much about that wide array of “transported goods” speaks to the very dichotomy of American culture. Priding itself on being a land of plenty while also doing everything in its power to self-destruct all that natural wealth. What’s more, the presence of hazardous material on trains is only too relevant considering the recent tragedy that befell East Palestine, Ohio. And yet, these are the sorts of environmentally-damaging behaviors that were set in motion in the postwar economic boom of America. Complete with the “miracle” of Teflon.

    Accordingly, it’s no coincidence that as the “progress” associated with modern life accelerated at a rate not seen since the first Industrial Revolution, some were concerned about the potential fallout of such “development.” After all, with technological advancement could arise as many inconveniences as conveniences (see also: AI). For those who came of age after the so-called war to end all wars, a natural skepticism vis-à-vis “advancement” was also to be expected. Perhaps the fear of modern existence, with all the implications of war and invasion being “leveled up” due to “better” technology (i.e., the atomic bomb), planted the seed of suddenly seeing flying saucers all the time starting in the 40s and 50s. A phenomenon that many government officials were keen to write off as being somehow related to atomic testing (this being why the Atomic Age is so wrapped up in the alien sightings craze of the 50s). The sudden collective sightings might also have been a manifestation of the inherent fear of what all this “progress” could do. Especially when it came to increasing the potential for interplanetary contact. For it was also in the 50s that the great “space race” began—spurred by nothing more than the competitive, dick-swinging nature of the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR. That was all it took to propel a “they’re among us” and “hiding in plain sight” mentality, one that was frequently preyed upon by the U.S. government via the Red Scare. Such intense fear- and paranoia-mongering does fuck with the mind, you know. Enough to make it see things that may or may not really be there (literally and figuratively). The term “alien,” therefore, meaning “foreigner” or “other” as much as extraterrestrial as the 50s wore on.

    So it was that Americans did what they always do best with fear: monetize it! To be sure, Asteroid City itself only exists to commodify the terror of an asteroid hitting Earth and leaving such a great impact thousands of years ago. Then, when news of an alien infiltrating the Junior Stargazer convention leaks, a fun fair materializes to sell merch (“Alien Gifts Sold Here”) related to commemorating the “event.” As such, the train that goes to Asteroid City suddenly becomes the “Alien Special” and there’s now “Alien Parking,” as well as signs declaring, “Asteroid City U.F.O.” and “Spacecraft Sighting.” With this American zeal for exploitation in mind, plus the alien element, there’s even a certain Nope vibe at play throughout Asteroid City as well. And a dash of Don’t Worry Darling, to boot. Mainly because of the unexplained sonic booms that go on in the background while the housewives are trying to kiki.

    Anderson extracts the paranoia element that might have been present in films of the day (like Flying Saucers Attack!) and instead relates the discovery of an alien life form to the added feeling of being insignificant as a human in this universe. To highlight that point, J.J. Kellogg (Liev Schreiber), father to Junior Stargazer Clifford, demands of his son’s escalating antics related to performing unasked dares, “Why do you always have to dare something?” He replies meekly, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid otherwise nobody’ll notice my existence in the universe.” To be sure, the reason most people behave obnoxiously is to get the kind of attention that will convince themselves they matter. They mean something in this grand abyss.

    Even Midge, a movie star, feels mostly unseen. So when Augie takes her picture in such an intimate way, she can’t help but feel allured by him. Seen by him. That, in the end, is what everyone wants. In the spirit of alluding to 50s Americana, Midge herself seems to be a loose representation of Marilyn Monroe, also prone to pills and alcohol, and constantly referred to as a brilliant comedienne despite flying under the radar as such. Then there’s another six degrees of Marilyn separation when Willem Dafoe appears as Saltzburg Keitel, an overt homage to Elia Kazan and his Actors Studio—a version of which we see when Earp shows up to a class to try to get insight on how to convey a certain scene. And yes, the concern with whether or not the acting in the play is being done “right” keeps coming up, reaching a crest as a metaphor for what Asteroid City is all about: what is anyone’s place in the universe? Does any of it mean anything? So yeah, again with the Woody Allen influence.

    Toward the end of the play/movie, Jones Hall, the actor playing Augie, asks Schubert Green (Adrien Brody), the director, “Do I just keep doing it?” He could be asking about his performance as much as his very existence itself. Schubert assures, “Yes.” Jones continues, “Without knowing anything? Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of answer out there in the cosmic wilderness?” When Jones then admits, “I still don’t understand the play,” that phrase “the play” doubles just as easily for “life.” Schubert insists, “Doesn’t matter. Just keep telling the story.” In other words, just keep rolling the dice and living as though any of it means anything at all.

    And maybe nihilism, for some people, is part of compartmentalizing that meaninglessness. This much appears to be the case for Midge, who tells Augie stoically, “I think I know now what I realize we are… Two catastrophically wounded people who don’t express the depths of their pain because…we don’t want to. That’s our connection.” But a connection is a connection—and that’s all anyone on Earth is really looking—starving—for…no matter how many decades fly by and how many according “advancements” are made. It’s likely the convention-interrupting alien could sense and see that desperation among the humans during his brief landing.

    So it is that Augie tells Midge afterward, “I don’t like the way that guy looked at us, the alien.” Midge inquires, “How did he look?”  “Like we’re doomed.” Midge shrugs, “Maybe we are.” “Maybe” being a polite euphemism for “definitely.” But even though we are, maybe the art will make sense of it all in the end. Even if only to “just keep telling the story.” For posterity. For whoever—or whatever—might come across the ruins and relics in the future. Hopefully, they’ll learn from the mistakes that we ourselves didn’t.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Wham!—The Music Duo and the Documentary—Reminds That Pop Music Was Never Frivolous

    Wham!—The Music Duo and the Documentary—Reminds That Pop Music Was Never Frivolous

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    It’s easy to write Wham! off, even to this day, as another “embarrassing” 80s pop group. Their preppy, often neon attire, combined with Hair As Personality stylings also add to the present-day listener’s inability to take them seriously. And yet, even in their time and place—when they “made sense”—they were still regarded by critics as froth. Or, worse still, chaff. But that didn’t stop fans and casual radio listeners alike from turning up the volume whenever one of the duo’s songs came on. As they frequently did once the band finally “made it big.” And, compared to other British bands (The Beatles included), Wham! had a relatively “seamless” transition from high school boys to twenty-something megastars.

    Maybe part of what made it feel so “natural” was that George Michael—born Georgios Panayiotou—and Andrew Ridgeley were friends for such a long time and shared the same dream of becoming musicians for equally as long, that it became unfathomable to think that life could turn out any other way. Director Chris Smith (known for other standout documentaries including Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond and Fyre) homes in on that friendship throughout Wham!, and how there would never have been a Wham! without that boyhood bond. Indeed, Michael himself is featured in the documentary stating, “I genuinely believe that there’s something predestined about it. I mean, the path might have been totally different had I sat down next to someone else that day.” That day being when George, age eleven, met Andrew, age twelve at Bushey Meads School in 1975. It became quickly apparent that their bond would be forged by music, with the voice of Ridgeley (for Smith goes the Asif Kapadia route in opting for voices and archival footage in lieu of talking heads for the documentary) remarking, “Essentially, Yog [Ridgeley’s affectionate nickname for George] and I saw things exactly the same way. Musically, we were joined at the hip.” A hip-joining that led them to start a ska band called The Executive that eventually “imploded,” leaving George and Andrew in the ruins—thus, demarcating them as the only two who were genuinely serious about “doing music” “as a career.”

    By 1981, the formation of that career was taking shape in the form of going to Beat Route (get it?—a play on beetroot) in London’s West End. It was there that nightclub culture informed the sound and lyrical content of Wham!’s work. As Ridgeley notes, “The songwriting was dictated by our circumstances, the environment around us.” Not just one dominated by escaping onto the dance floor, but one dominated by recession, unemployment and the unshakeable onset of Thatcherism. So yes, even a band as “light” as Wham! was expressing the pain of life as a young man in Britain. A life that seemed to offer no future other than the factory line or the dole line. That, too, was the uniqueness of Wham!—it was so distinctly laddish. So geared toward ruffians and a “neo” kind of Teddy Boy. The very prototype that John Lennon imitated when he was first starting to navigate his musical identity. Like The Beatles, Wham!, for all its “male motifs” appeal, would end up attracting primarily women as fans. With Michael in particular becoming a “pinup,” despite his resistance toward such a label as it meant having to further bury his sexuality in the sand. This occurring early on in Wham!’s career, after Michael decided to come out to Shirlie Kemp (one of the “backup girls” in the band/Ridgeley’s girlfriend-turned-ex) and Ridgeley while staying a few extra days in Ibiza after shooting the video for “Club Tropicana.” Because of course Ibiza would facilitate that epiphany, that sense of freeness to finally admit to others who you are. Alas, Shirlie and Ridgeley advised Michael against coming out publicly because they were both more concerned about his oppressive father’s horrifying reaction than anyone or anything else. It was with that bum advice that Michael sealed off a key part of himself for decades to come.

    For those who might have thought “Careless Whisper” was accordingly about some secret, forbidden love gone wrong, Wham! clears it up as being, quite simply, one of the first songs the duo recorded as Wham! As a matter of fact, the mention of “Careless Whisper” is interwoven throughout Wham!, almost like a recurring talisman…the way it has been in so many people’s lives. It was one of those songs that, just as A. B. Quintanilla writing Selena’s “Como La Flor,” kept building up over years of thinking about it. Michael confirms as much in Wham!, recounting, “We put it together very slowly, at home or on the bus, just add a little day by day.” Nonetheless, it wasn’t “really ready” until 1984, though Michael was struck with inspiration for the lyrics at just seventeen years old, while riding the bus to his job as an usher at a movie theater (thus, the verse, “Something in your eyes/Calls to mind a silver screen/And all its sad goodbyes”). Again, he was only seventeen when he wrote it. A song of such power and maturity. A song that would make all saxophone solos after it pale in comparison. A song that would set Ridgeley up for life as a result of receiving half the royalties.

    But for all the flak Ridgeley gets about “riding coattails,” it has to be said that he was the main reason Wham! existed at all (or George Michael The Performer, for that matter). Were it not for his persistent harassment of a label cofounder for Innervision Records called Mark Dean, Wham! probably never would have gotten a record deal (even if it turned out to be a really shitty one, in terms of any sort of financial gain for the band’s success). Dean lived down the street from Ridgeley’s parents, and Ridgeley would phone Dean’s mom asking if her son had listened to the demo tape he put in their letterbox yet. When he finally did, Dean was impressed enough despite the lo-fi quality of it to sign the group to the label.

    It’s here that Ridgeley stating, “There was only one thing that I ever wanted to do: be in a band with Yog” comes to mind. Because perhaps that’s why, once Ridgeley’s dream was fulfilled, it was all downhill from there (for his music career, at least). Complete with his raucous, party animal reputation that resulted in the tabloid nicknames “Animal Andy” and Randy Andy.” But it was a tabloid frenzy that suited Michael well, for it meant no one could call attention to his own seemingly total lack of a sexual appetite…for women, that is. Even if the telltale clues were always there, plain as day. Just look at a double entendre-y lyric such as, “I choose to cruise.” Not to mention the entire contents of “Nothing Looks the Same in the Light,” a song Michael wrote about the first time he realized he wanted to stay in bed with a man for the night.

    Not being able to be honest about who he was caused an undeniable depression. It was likely for this reason that Michael retreated further into the protection of Wham!’s “effervescent” and “exuberant” aura. Fun and “escapism” being the core tenets of what Wham! was all about. It’s possible Michael was afraid to lose a protective shield like that (even though many probably thought Ridgeley needed Wham! more than Michael). For, unlike most bands that start out at a certain age, therefore represent/are forever associated with that certain age, Wham! knew from the outset that it was ultimately a finite project. That there was, inevitably, an expiration date on what they represented—fun, froth and frivolity—once they aged out of the very demographic they were appealing to. The same thing technically happened to The Beatles after 1965 (once Beatlemania had crested), but they chose to reanimate into a “Part Deux” of themselves, replete with psychedelia and Eastern-influenced lyrics and rhythms.

    Wham! was never going to bother with a Part Deux of themselves, which is why it was so important to them to “make it big” in their teens/early twenties. “Youth” was their brand. And, in contrast to The Beatles, they weren’t shy about their affinity for pop (The Beatles, instead, wanted to be categorically “rock n’ roll”). As both Michael and Ridgeley exhibited, pop was never froth, not fundamentally. In that sense, one might say they were doing “purposeful pop” long before Katy Perry decided to on Witness. Because, in defiance of most Brits, Michael and Ridgeley weren’t snobbish about the genre. Indeed, willfully chose it (they “chose life,” if you will) over something like the ska and punk genres that dominated their sound when they were in The Executive.

    A pop song could say so much more than any treatise or political speech. And “Wham Rap!” did just that, with an opening that goes, “Wham! bam!/I am! a man!/Job or no job,/You can’t tell me that I’m not./Do! you!/Enjoy what you do?/If not, just stop!/Don’t stay there and rot!” It was advice, in the end, that would apply to the dissolution of Wham! But that doesn’t come until the end of the documentary. In the meantime, the criticism they endure for shifting from “socially aware” content to something like “Club Tropicana”—which marked the true essence of the band—is addressed. Reviews from the British press were merciless, including assessments such as, “The work is futile, the thought is shallow…” Yet there was nothing futile, shallow or thoughtless about Michael and Ridgeley catering to what their own peers wanted. Knowing full well what would make hearts and pulses alike flutter. As Michael explained to one interviewer back in the day, “I think what’s happening in England is that there’s a large escapist element creeping back into music now. Three or four years ago with the punk thing, people were shouting. Now, they’re not ashamed of being young, unemployed. They’d rather just go to a disco or a club and forget about it.” Wham!, in that regard, was anything but frivolous, even if they were catering to those who wanted to be frivolous.

    Having a keen social awareness of their time and place, Wham! embodied the 80s not just for their vibrantly-colored sportswear and hairstyles that required a blow dryer, but because they knew beneath the so-called froth of it all was a dark, unpleasant reality—neoliberalism held up as a god, racism, AIDS, war, famine. So why not just escape for the four-minute length of a pop song? Why not just have a good time while you could, whenever you could grab it? Something only a pop song is capable of furnishing on a socialistic level. Nothing about that is frivolous, yet pop music continues to be lambasted for having no value when, in truth, it remains one of the few pure modern comforts we have in a world of cold, hard reality.

    To many, Wham! will never be a band “of substance.” Or, if it is, then only if the duo is being sardonically pontificated upon by yuppies like Patrick Bateman (indeed, how did Bret Easton Ellis choose not to include a discourse on Make It Big from Bateman at some point in American Psycho?). But to those who understand that the presence of pop music in our culture is the best way to check its pulse (and if it even still has one), Wham! was a symbol of one of the most vital times in music, reflecting the youth back to itself before it was forced into the kind of situation “Wham Rap!” and “Young Guns” warned about.

    With a run time of about one hour and thirty minutes, the Wham! documentary feels as short-lived as the band’s five-ish years of recording together. And likewise, it’s just as impactful despite its shortness.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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